


It Comes in Twos

by trailsofpaper (Sanwall)



Series: Hollywood Blues [1]
Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Detective Andrew Ilnyckyj, Glorified Secretary But Actual Hero Adam Bianchi, Golden Age Hollywood, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, Pathologist Steven Lim, Sex, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:23:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: 1937, Hollywood. A gruesome death that is not accidental, and a recently divorced detective who does his best not to let his feelings for his colleague get in the way of solving the case.





	1. Act One

**Author's Note:**

> All this started from a sidenote to another fic that I haven't yet written; I guess life works in mysterious ways.
> 
> Huge thanks to my cheerleading and brainstorming squad @salfarn and @laufarn, and my undying gratitude to [semperama](http://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama) for proofreading and yelling with me about standrew. Any and all remaining mistakes are definitely my own.
> 
> Hope you like it! You can find me over on tumblr @trailsofpaper

* * *

**Part I**

* * *

“We’ve gotten reports of a death up in West Hollywood,” Bianchi said quietly. He was always quiet, but there was a trepidation in his voice that Andrew wasn’t quite used to hearing.

So Detective Andrew Ilnyckyj put the folder down on his desk with a sigh and leaned back in his chair to look Adam Bianchi in the eye. Bianchi didn’t meet his gaze though, which really ought to have made Andrew suspicious from the start.

“I gather the boss wants me to go see to it?” he asked and flicked his head towards the door to the office of the Deputy Chief. The door was closed as always, but even so the presence behind it loomed large in the mind of everyone at the Los Angeles Police Department, Andrew included.

Bianchi hummed but didn’t answer, and this was where Andrew’s detective abilities woke up and started sniffing the air. It smelled fishy.

“What’s the matter with you, huh?” he asked, and he tried to keep the acerbic edge from his voice but probably failed, because Bianchi shifted on his feet and looked to the door.

“He said you need a partner,” he said. Andrew stretched his back and nonchalantly leaned the back of his head against his interlaced fingers.

“Sure,” he said. “Who?”

* * *

“You really don’t have to come,” Andrew said to his partner, which might have been a strange thing to say since he was the one who was driving the police department’s decade-old Model T Ford they had to use as transportation.

Steven Lim, however, only tapped the steering wheel and flashed Andrew a smile as he said:

“Of course I’ll come!”

Andrew made a face.

“I mean, I’ve been on this job for a while. I’m sure I can determine the cause of death,” he said. “Without a pathologist.”

Steven only flashed him that smile again, before returning his eyes to the road.

“Sure you can!” he said brightly. “But you gotta give a guy like me something to do too!”

Andrew supposed he had to concede the point. He shifted in his seat and looked out at the tall, white brick walls surrounding the properties they were driving past. The upkeep of each and every one of these houses had to cost more than Andrew made in a year. Hell, make it ten years.

“It’s most likely an accident,” Andrew said slowly, thinking out loud. “They called the police because these Hollywood people are all about the dramatics.”

Steven made a little noise in his throat, and Andrew didn’t look over at him.

“I don’t know about that,” he heard Steven say. “I think it’s exciting!”

 _Of course,_ Andrew thought. _Everything is exciting to you._

Andrew could remember the first time he’d met Steven - he’d come into work one day, bags under his eyes from a night spent arguing instead of sleeping with the woman he loved. Everyone at the office recognized the warning signs and kept a wide berth around him - everyone except Steven Lim, who came bounding up to him with a smile and a handshake so enthusiastic it scrambled Andrew’s brains.

Despite himself, Andrew had let himself be pulled into a discussion, and by the time Steven left for the morgue and his job, they were on first-name basis and the headache at the back of Andrew’s head had dissipated.

It took him a long time to realize that he’d started to depend on Steven to pick up his mood and even longer to stop relying on it.

* * *

The acrid smell of fireworks lingered in the air as they made their way to the scene of the incident, led by a waiter who was frazzled but hiding it under a thin veneer of staunch professionalism.

Andrew felt on edge, surrounded by all these incredibly beautiful people who were all speaking amongst themselves in hushed tones - the party had come to an abrupt halt, but everyone was hanging around to see things unfold.

He imagined he could hear the tinkling of the champagne glasses echoing off the women’s extravagant jewelry, muffled by the opulent black of the men’s tuxedos, as they clung to each other. Fanciful, maybe, but Andrew knew the power of imagination, especially when it came to these people. Imagination was their job.

“Over here, gentlemen,” the waiter said, and gestured to the pool beside the grand terrace of the house. The gathered people parted to let them pass, and Andrew glanced at Steven, who had swapped his smile for an appropriately somber expression. He’d left his hat in the car, and being bareheaded made him look younger.

The body of Herbert Fulbright-Lloyd, film producer, director, and owner of the house, had been dragged out of the pool, maybe in a misguided attempt to save a life long gone. The body lay in a dark heap on the tiles, surrounded by a macabre pool of watered that glittered in the lights from the house.

Steven kneeled quickly, paying the water no heed as it soaked through his pants. Andrew averted his gaze from his slender form that seemed oddly vulnerable on the ground, and he quickly assessed the people closest to them.

A woman hiding her face in the shoulder of another woman, her thin body wracked by sobs, was the wife or lover, no question about it. The visage of the man in a dinner jacket that was just a smidge too small, who was hugging his own elbows, bore a faint resemblance to the corpse; he was probably a close relative if Andrew was any judge.

There was no way to determine the level of investment of the rest of the people in the half circle surrounding them; Andrew had learned the hard way not to make assumptions.

“Well?” Andrew said out of the corner of his mouth. Steven sat back on his haunches and pushed his thumb across his forehead, perhaps in an attempt to wipe his fringe out of his eyes. The fringe in question was standing straight up in a spiky, black tiara, so Andrew really didn’t know why he bothered. Maybe it was like when Bianchi tried to push the glasses up his nose even when he wasn’t wearing them. Habitual motion.

“I mean I can’t say for sure it’s drowning until I perform an actual autopsy,” Steven said quietly and looked up at Andrew. “But it’s drowning.”

“All right,” Andrew said, but he dropped down into a crouch as well, though keeping his knees well above the water, and swept his eyes over the victim. The tuxedo was well-tailored and expensive - it was effectively ruined now, of course. The hair plastered to the skull was darkened by water but was still dark when dry, Andrew would bet. Carefully, he gripped the cuff of the soaked sleeve between thumb and forefinger and lifted it up. It detached from the tiles with a gross, squelching noise.

A gold band gleamed on his ring finger. So wife, then. Instinctively, Andrew flexed his own left hand, but no wedding ring cut into the palm of his hand anymore. He’d left the ring in the apartment he let her take over, so that he wouldn’t do anything sentimental with it. She had probably pawned it. His ex-wife was nothing if not practical.

Andrew gently turned the still-limp wrist to cradle the hand in his and swiped his thumb over the damp, soft palm. It wasn’t a surprise that this film producer at a Hollywood party in an impeccably tailored suit hadn’t done a day’s worth of menial labor in his life, but at least Andrew had ruled out practical work of any sort.

This was when his eyes snagged on the man’s nails. Specifically, the blood that had crusted under them. Andrew leaned in closer and yes, it had to be recent. There were skin fragments there; whoever he had scratched, it had been deep.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Andrew murmured to Steven before he got to his feet. Steven shot up as well, straightening his back with an alarmed widening of his expressive eyes.

Once, when Andrew had been on the phone to conduct official police business with an irate widower who would not stop talking about the lawsuit that he wanted to make, Steven had come up from the morgue. He’d had that characteristic spring in his step - from the corner of his eye, Andrew had watched him walk up to his desk, and, seeing that Andrew wasn’t there, turn on his heel to scan the office to locate him. Absentminded, he’d kept tabs on his approach where he weaved past the desks and swerved around people in the office to reach Andrew by the phone.

Even when Steven came to stand right by him, Andrew hadn’t acknowledged him; instead he kept his eyes steadfastly on the paper he was holding while giving clipped, monosyllabic answers to the ramblings on the other end of the line. Steven had raised his hand and waved it in front of his face to get his attention. Without looking directly at him, Andrew had pinched the receiver between ear and shoulder and used his free hand to give Steven’s nose a flick.

Steven’s hands had come up to press at his face, and, when Andrew had finally looked over, he had been wearing the same, stupefied expression he did now, eyes widened in shock over the rim of his clasped hands. Andrew had felt a rush of laughter and then thought, _oh._

Andrew blinked up at Steven by the glittering poolside of this Hollywood manor - he always forgot that Steven was a little taller than him, even though most anyone was a little taller than him. But then he shook himself out of it, clapped Steven briefly on the arm and said:

“Please make arrangements to bring the body in. I’ll talk to some of the people.”

Steven nodded, lips pressed into a line, and turned to the waiter to ask for a telephone. Andrew looked after him for a second, as always baffled by the ready way Steven tended to do what he asked of him.

The morning after the night of Andrew’s divorce, Steven had come right up to him and asked him if he was all right. The both of them had gotten out of the bar together and then Andrew had left in a rush, and Steven didn’t know what to make of it.

“I’m fine, Lim,” Andrew had said curtly, without looking up from his work. When Steven did not move, he finally looked up and added, “I can handle my liquor, unlike you.”

Steven had reeled a little at that, rocking back on his heels. But then he’d grinned and replied:

“You got me there, Ilnyckyj. It’s a wonder I even made it home.”

The apologies and reassurances were already crowding on Andrew’s tongue, but acknowledging how much he didn’t want Steven to feel bad would only make things worse. So he’d swallowed them down, and said:

“Get out of here, I need to work.”

Steven did get out of there, with another smile and a wave, and Andrew decided right then that he would stop asking Steven for things, especially things he had no right to ask.

* * *

**Part II**

* * *

"Can you tell me what happened?” Andrew asked in a low voice, after pulling aside the man he’d determined to be related to the victim.

The man chewed on his meaty lower lip for a moment. Andrew noted that he was attempting to grow a Clark Gable moustache, which was all the rage these days, but was failing rather spectacularly at emulating the neatness of it.

“He was - we were all gathered on the other side of the house,” the man said. “To watch the fireworks.”

Andrew dutifully made a note in his notebook. He was bad at writing things down, always caught flak back at the office for it. He preferred to keep it all in his head where he could rearrange information at will, but procedure was procedure.

The man gave a watery chuckle and then sniffed. “I’m sorry, my manners have quite left me. I’m Harold Fulbright-Lloyd, how do you do.”

“Detective Ilnyckyj,” Andrew conceded, and reluctantly grasped Fulbright-Lloyd’s proffered hand. The handshake was damp and loose, and reminded Andrew too much of the victim’s hand. He noticed there were conspicuous wet splashes all across the front of his slightly ill-fitting tux.

“Can I ask you what your relationship to the deceased is?” Andrew said, unable to school his voice into something more alive than a vaguely sympathetic drone. He wasn’t the best at dealing with bereft people. Harold Fulbright-Lloyd didn’t much seem to mind though; he sniffed again and replied:

“He’s my- I’m his brother. We’ve worked on several feature films together and-” Here his voice broke and he had to swallow to continue. “-I don’t know what will happen to the one we are working on now.”

Andrew made another note in his notebook.

“I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station tomorrow,” he said, and, when the man’s eyes widened in horror, he added, “Only to take your full statement, Mr Fulbright-Lloyd. It’s procedure.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Fulbright-Lloyd said, visibly relieved. Andrew’s instincts flared to life at his fidgeting and he said:

“Do you know who last saw your brother alive?”

Fulbright-Lloyd pulled at his shirt collar.

“You know,” he said, and dropped his voice to a near-whisper. “I think I heard him argue with Madej - Shane Madej, you know, the actor - right before the fireworks started.”

Andrew didn’t know Shane Madej the actor, but he nodded and thanked Mr Fulbright-Lloyd before going off to look for him.

Shane Madej turned out to look vaguely familiar - Andrew supposed he’d seen him on the silver screen at some point - because the triangular face with its characteristic arched and pointed nose was certainly odd enough to be memorable.

In person, however, his most notable trait was his height. He towered over Andrew by at least two full heads, but he didn’t carry his height with much confidence. He kept his shoulders hunched, and his brown hair was a mess, looking like he’d pulled his hands through it repeatedly with no care for the conscientious styling that no doubt had preceded the evening.

“I heard that you exchanged words with Mr Fulbright-Lloyd before the firework show,” Andrew said, and Madej stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I, well, yes, we were talking,” he said and put his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants. His tux was completely dry, but it looked rumpled, like he’d slept in it. Andrew said nothing, but he raised his eyebrows to prompt him to go on.

“He approached me on the terrace. It was just business talk,” Madej continued after a moment, raising his hand to scratch his already wild hair. “You know, his next film projects, if the studio would want to loan me out to them.”

“And what did he say?” Andrew asked, voice level.

Madej’s mouth twisted, like he knew the next words out of it would be damning.

“He said I was a sorry excuse for a has-been and that I would be lucky to get stunt work on B-rolls,” he said drily. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Mr Fulbright-Lloyd was hardly known for being diplomatic.”

Andrew made another note in the notebook. Madej’s eyes tracked the movement of his pencil warily.

“What did you do after he told you that?” Andrew asked, and looked at him under his lashes.

Madej shrugged, and on his gawky frame the movement looked almost comical.

“I left him on the terrace. I needed a drink.”

“Thank you Mr Madej. You might get a summons to the police station to give your full statement at some point,” Andrew recited by rote, and watched Madej nod and turn awkwardly to go back to the crowd.  A black-haired man detached from the group of people and met Madej halfway, imploringly putting his hand on his arm, but Madej made a furious cutting motion with his hand, apparently to silence or dissuade him.

Andrew made a mental note - not deigning to put it down on paper - to get to the bottom of that particular interaction at a later date. As for now, Steven was coming up to him, absentmindedly rubbing at his exposed forearms as he looked around.

“They picked up the body,” Steven informed him, finally meeting Andrew’s eyes. “Ought I to go back with them now or do you need me here?”

Andrew wanted to bite his tongue, but against his will it said:

“I just need to talk to the wife, and then we can go.”

Steven shrugged and smiled, like it was just as pleasant to go with Andrew and talk to the wife of the recently deceased drowning victim as it was to, say, imbibe a glass of bourbon on the rocks after a hot Californian day.

Andrew cursed inwardly at his own weakness. But then again, he didn’t much want to drive that godforsaken antique of an automobile they’d taken to the scene of the crime, so he sort of needed Steven to take him back anyway.

So with Steven at his side, Andrew sought out the wife. She had migrated inside the house and was seated on a divan, still accompanied by the woman on whose shoulder she had been weeping. Now she sat straight, eyes clear if red-rimmed, and with the loose strands of dark hair carefully tucked back into her hairdo.

“I’m detective Andrew Ilnyckyj. Sorry to intrude at a time like this, Mrs Fulbright-Lloyd,” he said, took off his hat and, in lack of suitable furniture to sit on, sank to his knee so he wouldn’t tower over her.

“Thank you detective,” she said with a wet sniff. Her accent was unmistakably foreign. “Although I go by my maiden name, Beaufort.”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs Beaufort,” Andrew said smoothly, swallowing at least three terrible and inappropriate storm jokes. The accent and name, French. Good to know. “And my condolences.”

He could feel Steven shift a little on his feet behind him, but he kept quiet, and his silence was like a pressure front at the back of Andrew’s mind.

“If I- If we could speak to you alone,” Andrew continued, addressing Mrs Beaufort but looking at the friend. Her blonde hair was immaculately curled and styled, and she had her shawl as tightly drawn around her shoulders inside as she had outside in the night chill, and she didn’t seem the least bit inclined to leave the side of her recently widowed friend. But when Andrew tilted his head imploringly, she relented and got up after giving Mrs Beaufort’s hand one last squeeze.

Mrs Beaufort dusted off her lap and crossed her legs at the ankles. She was wearing low heels, very fashionable, and a silk dress that clung to her like it was desperate. Detachedly, Andrew noted that she would have needed help to get into it, and that it was completely dry.

“When did you last see your husband alive?” Andrew asked, as gently as he could. Mrs Beaufort delicately touched the back of her hand to her kohl-lined eyes before answering.

“Oh, sometime before the fireworks, I can’t say... Hosting a party like this, so many people to greet, we didn’t stay by each other’s side.”

“Your friend seemed keen on staying by your side,” Andrew commented, carefully. Mrs Beaufort’s painted lips stretched into a smile that faded as quickly as it had appeared.

“Bella is my best friend,” she said. “She pulled me away, from the kitchen, to go look at the fireworks when they started.”

Andrew nodded and got to his feet. He suppressed a grimace when his knee joints crackled as they straightened, and he nodded to her as he set the hat back on his head.

“I must ask you to come down to the station to give a full statement,” he said. “But it can wait until morning.”

When Andrew looked over, Steven met his gaze easily, unfolding his crossed arms like he was ready to go. Andrew wanted to leave too, but as they were crossing the terrace overlooking the yard and the fateful pool, he saw Mrs Beaufort’s friend, Bella, leaning against the marble railing and smoking a cigarette without a holder.

She was looking up at the star studded night sky without acknowledging either of them, and Andrew veered off to the side, towards her.

“Bother you for a light?” Andrew asked and pulled a cigarette from the mangled packet in his back pocket. She looked at him under drawn eyebrows, but dutifully produced a modern Zippo lighter from her decorated purse, without letting go of her shawl.

Andrew thanked her, and it took a couple of tries before he managed to light his cigarette before he handed it back. He pulled in his first mouthful of smoke, and as he blew it out he asked, conversationally:

“I hear there were fireworks tonight. What were they like?”

“They were fireworks,” Bella answered shortly. “Pretty, I suppose.”

Andrew nodded and thanked her again, before he trailed back to Steven, who didn’t seem to have looked away from him for a second.

“What was that about?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Do you fancy Isabelle Dunway?”

“Who?” Andrew said and plucked the cigarette from his mouth so it wouldn’t drop to the ground. He didn’t much like smoking these days, but that would still be a waste.

“Isabelle Dunway?” Steven repeated as they walked shoulder to shoulder back to the car. “The woman you bummed a light off. She’s been in loads of films, real up and coming, they say.”

“I didn’t know,” Andrew said truthfully.

“I just wanted a light,” he added, which wasn’t entirely truthful, but near enough. Steven complained about the tobacco smell the entire car ride back, and Andrew was too vindictive to put it out.

* * *

**Part III**

* * *

“I know you don’t like working with me,” Steven said the following day, and Andrew barely managed not to spill the coffee all over his desk.

Carefully, he put the chipped mug down among his papers - the guest list from the party and his own messy notes of the timeline he’d constructed from several interviews - and turned in his chair to look up at Steven, who was standing by his desk and clutching a stack of papers to his chest like his life depended on it.

“But, can we just put that aside and get to the bottom of this case?” he continued, and Andrew could see his adam’s apple bob when he swallowed.

“Yeah,” Andrew said, and his throat clicked on the word. “Yeah, no, of course.”

Steven gave a grin at that, but it wasn’t his usual radiant smile - it was perfunctory and didn’t reach his eyes. It was like a slap in Andrew’s face.

“Great,” Steven said and straightened up from the slight slouch and held up a folder. “I have the full autopsy report here.”

Andrew reached out for it, and Steven seemed to hesitate for a second before he handed it over.

“You were right that it wasn’t an accident,” Steven said and leaned forward to look over Andrew’s shoulder when he flipped through the report. “There’s cranial trauma - he was hit over the back of his head, though probably not so hard that he lost consciousness. Water in his lungs, so the cause of death is definitely drowning. And, like you said, there are traces of skin and blood under his left fingernails, indicating that he put up a fight.”

“So he was assaulted,” Andrew mumbled, mostly to himself. “There’s a pretty significant window of time during the firework show where no one saw him or would have heard anything.”

“Yeah,” Steven said and slid his hands in his pants pockets. “Do we have any suspects?”

Andrew looked up at him, and seeing Steven put up this wall of carefully constructed calm and serious sobriety just for his benefit was a weight on his chest. He cleared his throat and said:

“It’s been a long day. If I’m going to go over the list I’m going to need a drink.”

Steven brightened, just enough for it to be perceptible. “You want to go out for drinks?”

Andrew tamped down on the warning bells sounding at the back of his mind. But he’d been staying away for completely selfish reasons, and if Steven had liked their drinking together, who was Andrew to deprive him?

“Sure,” he said lightly, like he wasn’t signing his own death warrant.

* * *

The last time they’d been out for drinks had been ages ago, on that night Andrew finally moved out after the gruesome divorce proceedings had been finalized. Steven had taken one look at him, coming into the office looking, well, dumped, and he’d grasped both his shoulders and declared that he would buy him the drinks tonight. Andrew had nodded mechanically and replied, more on instinct than anything else, that he was game as long Steven was buying.

Andrew drank three glasses of whiskey for every drink Steven had, which meant that Andrew was just about keeping up, steadfastly hunched over the bar and tuning out the jazz band in the corner. He’d come of age during the prohibition, which meant he was as hard a drinker as anyone, and anyway, tonight he was aiming for oblivion. Steven was just along for the ride.

“You’re a good man,” Steven said somewhere around Andrew’s fourth whiskey, and Andrew aggressively waved for the bartender to top up Steven’s glass.

“You’re drunk, but not drunk enough for that kind of talk.”

Steven had chuckled, cheeks already flushed and eyes just a little bit glassy

“I said I’d pay for _your_ drinks,” he said and elbowed Andrew in the side so Andrew swayed on his chair. “If you want _me_ drunk, it’s gonna have to be on your dime!”

Andrew had waved even more energetically at the bartender, because Steven’s laughter made some ugly knot in his stomach loosen just a little.

“I know how you feel, man,” Steven said, somewhere around Andrew’s seventh whiskey, and Andrew was just drunk enough to snort into the glass.

“Oh you do, do you?” he said, and he hated the angry sarcasm in his voice but not enough to do something about it. “Did you plan to live the rest of your life with the woman you love just to have her throw it back in your face?”

Steven looked down into his own glass, rolling it slowly between his palms, the sad remains of the crushed ice sloshing around with a lone twist of lemon. Andrew found his gaze inexplicably drawn to the slender lines of Steven’s hand, highlighted by the shadow pooling below the wrist bone. His unbuttoned shirt sleeve was haphazardly pushed up to his elbow, and Andrew carefully extinguished the half-formed urge to roll up the sleeves properly for him.

“Sort of,” Steven said, and Andrew hated that he had somehow managed to suck the joy out of Steven’s voice. “I mean, I was supposed to get married.”

“You were?” Andrew said, straightening up so forcefully that some of his whiskey sloshed down on the countertop.

“It was kind of arranged,” Steven admitted, pushing his glass away. “Since we were kids - I’d always known I was going to get married to her one day.”

There was nothing Andrew could say. His brain was firing on empty, and he was gaping like a fish.

Steven glanced at him, a quick flash of a smile, and then:

“But we grew up and she didn’t want it. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that she was a modern woman, and, well, that was that.”

At this point, Steven had to break off to give a gentle hiccup. Andrew’s grip on his glass tightened.

“Guess I’m going to have to go out there and find love on my own,” Steven concluded quietly, like they were the only two people in the world, in this crapsack jazz bar with smoke crowding the ceiling and people crowding each other.

Andrew desperately downed the last of his whiskey so he wouldn’t say anything stupid. His tongue felt like it was twice its normal size, and he didn’t think it was good to feel your heartbeat out in your fingertips like this, when he knocked the glass into the wood for a refill.

“Good luck,” Andrew managed at last, and his voice sounded shot to hell. Steven looked at him again, a wry twist to his mouth.

“I’m sorry, this has gotta be the worst time to tell you about my - lack of heartache, I guess,” he said and clapped his hand to Andrew’s arm, where it rested against the bar.

“No, it’s fine,” Andrew hastened to say, in that exaggerated manner of the drunk. “It’s fine, I didn’t- I didn’t know. Did you want to marry her?”

Steven turned on his chair a little, a questioning tilt to his head as he looked Andrew over.

“You know, I never much thought about it,” he said, and it had to be the dim light that made his eyes look so calculating, Andrew thought. Narrow and dark, completely unlike him.

“I can’t believe that,” Andrew said, and it was a relief when the bartender poured him another glass. He got lost in the amber gleam of it, distracted enough that Steven’s answer was jarring.

“I was kind of freeing actually. To have it arranged. I didn’t have to worry about it.”

Desperate to stay on top of things, to prove that he was able to handle the situation, Andrew blurted out:

“So what, you-”

“I worry about it now,” he said, and Andrew made the mistake of meeting Steven’s eyes again.

They seemed bottomless, his eyes, and Andrew found himself wanting to drown.

He tore his gaze away and swallowed his whiskey, the rim of the glass clinking painfully against his teeth in his haste to get it all down.

By the time Steven tugged at his arm, insisting they leave, Andrew had long since lost count of his whiskeys, and it was much easier to go along with it instead of arguing. He listed against Steven as they stumbled out into the night, and through the haze of alcohol Andrew managed to be surprised at how steady Steven’s lanky frame was.

“Thank you,” Andrew said out into the night and leaned into Steven’s arm around his waist.

“Any time, buddy,” Steven said, and Andrew realized that he felt - happy. It was strange and unfamiliar, because lately his life had been characterized by an encompassing feeling of dread, and happiness had felt more like a distant memory, or a dream he’d forgotten, than an emotion he was capable of having.

He stopped on the sidewalk, which pulled Steven to a halt as well. His leg swung out in an aborted step and he regained equilibrium by turning and gripping Andrew’s shoulder with the hand that wasn’t on his waist.

“Thank you,” Andrew repeated, his voice breaking just a little. Steven squeezed his shoulder and his mouth pulled into a smile.

Andrew was drunk enough that he wasn’t sure exactly how the hug happened; all he knew was that they were pressed together from chest to toe, one of Steven’s arms slung over his shoulder and the other around his waist, holding him tight. Andrew felt loose-limbed and fuzzy, but clinging onto Steven was grounding and wonderful.

It felt good, so good, and Andrew turned his face, into the warmth of Steven’s neck. He inhaled deeply, the beginnings of a contented sigh, and Steven _smelled_ so good, a hint of sweetness mixed in with the scent of fresh sweat, that Andrew wanted to lick his skin.

It took a second, but then the notion sliced through the fog of intoxication like a cold knife. Andrew’s eyes shot open and he pushed away so quickly that he stumbled. He thought Steven looked surprised, but he didn’t stay to find out.

“I need to go,” he said, and with that he started to walk home. The trams had long since stopped running for the night.

* * *

It hadn’t been fair to Steven, had been Andrew’s reasoning, to keep leaning on him. But now the work put them together, and Andrew could damn well be professional about it. It was just a drink between friends- not even that. Between colleagues.

Steven was pulling at his lower lip, thoughtfully, pinching it between thumb and forefinger, and Andrew had given his summary of the case and its main suspects so he could safely hide in his glass like the coward he was.

“I don’t know, that Shane Madej sounds like he’s got something to hide,” Steven said at last.

“I agree,” Andrew said, still with his lips on the rim of his glass.


	2. Act Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Andrew go through the suspect list and Andrew draws some conclusions.

* * *

**Part IV**

* * *

It wasn’t hard to dig up Madej’s address - he lived in an affluent area, but not quite so lavishly as the late Mr Fulbright-Lloyd, and the very next day they decided to drop by.

“I can question him myself,” Andrew said, for maybe the fifth time, as they came up to the door. The gate had been open, so they’d left the car in front of the garage containing, presumably Madej’s, brand new and shining 1937 Lincoln-Zephyr automobile that Andrew threw a longing glance.

Steven rolled his eyes under the brim of his grey fedora, also for the fifth time.

“What happened to solving this together?” he asked, and Andrew let out a frustrated huff.

“That doesn’t mean we have to _do_ everything together,” he said. “You could put your time to better use.”

Steven leaned forward, and, without breaking eye contact with Andrew, he pointedly pressed the doorbell.

“All right,” Andrew muttered and looked down. He shifted the weight on his feet back and forth for a moment before he realized no one was answering the door.

He looked at Steven, and a moment of quiet understanding passed between them. Andrew put his shoulder to the door, and to his surprise it was unlocked and swung open easily under his weight when he turned the handle.

Andrew stepped inside, instinctively keeping his back to the wall as much as he was able.

“You check the backyard,” he mouthed at Steven and gestured towards the large windows at the back of the house, facing a terrace and greenery. Steven nodded and moved towards the back door immediately, and Andrew didn’t have time to examine the sting of emotion at his ready compliance.

Instead he moved further into the house, senses on high alert and all too aware of the fact that he was completely unarmed.

The house seemed lived in, coffee cups set out on the coffee table, the couch cushions flattened and rumpled, knick-knacks strewn across the bookshelf like someone had put them there and forgotten about them - but nothing seemed out of sorts, as far as Andrew could tell.

He heard the quiet click of Steven opening the back door, and then he heard a soft thump from the second floor.

Andrew sucked in a breath between his teeth and went up the stairs as quietly as he could.

The uppermost step creaked when he stepped on it, and he stilled, holding his breath. There was another thump, a dull sound like something hitting the wall without much force, but no indication that anyone had noticed him, so Andrew went on.

His ears picked up on the sound of voices, faint, behind a door - it wasn’t a row, of that Andrew was sure, and that was why he considered knocking. But some instinct or other had him turning the door handle and throwing the door wide open without announcing himself.

It was obviously Shane Madej’s bedroom, going by the clothes carelessly strewn over a chair and the unmade bed. Shane Madej himself was occupying it, sitting on the bed with his legs splayed, and a very conspicuous foot away stood the dark-haired man who Andrew had seen him with that fateful night of the murder.

He was of East Asian descent but looked nothing like Steven - if Andrew had to guess he’d say Japanese. His black hair was helplessly tousled, like someone had pulled their hands through it repeatedly, and his mouth was open in shock.

Andrew then took in the state of Madej - the shirt unbuttoned halfway, the noticeable reddening of his mouth. Really, it was as obvious as if the other fellow had been wearing lipstick, Andrew thought, and anyway, the look of naked fear on both of their faces was damning enough.

“Detective Ilnyckyj, we didn’t hear you come in,” Madej said, after a second of loaded silence, and Andrew supposed he had to give it to him - he didn’t try the old _this isn’t what it looks like_ bit. He seemed to have accepted his fate as it was, and for that he deserved some respect.

“I just had some further questions about the incident two nights ago,” Andrew said and plucked the hat from his head and leaned on the doorframe. “No one answered the door.”

“Yeah, uh,” Madej said and furtively began to button his shirt. “We can- how about we move to the sitting room?”

Andrew stepped aside and held his hat out to the side to let the black-haired man pass, and then Madej himself. The door swung shut behind him as he followed them both down the stairs, and at the sound of their approach, Steven stuck his head back in the back door.

“Come in, Lim,” Andrew said and waved at him. “We’re just going to talk to Mr Madej and Mr -”

“Bergara,” said the black-haired man shortly. “Ryan Bergara.”

“- Mr Bergara,” Andrew finished easily. He set the hat down on a dresser to put both his hands in his pants pockets.

“Can I offer you a drink?” Madej said with a tone of voice that made it clear that he had all but given up on trying to be polite but was in need of something strong himself.

Andrew shrugged, and Madej plucked four glasses from a shelf with one hand and uncorked the decanter of bourbon with the other.

He carelessly splashed a measure of liquid in each glass and handed one to Bergara first - and Andrew noted with mild interest the eye contact they made and held for just a second too long - before he provided both Andrew and Steven with theirs.

Then he downed the contents of his own glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and poured another for himself before he fell into an armchair and gestured for them to sit down as well.

Steven and Andrew took place beside each other on the couch, and Andrew caught his eyes and flicked his head in a manner he hoped conveyed that he’d explain it all later.  Steven pressed his lips together, but took off his hat and put it on his knee without saying anything.

Bergara remained stubbornly standing with his arms crossed, the hand holding the glass resting in the crook of his elbow.

“Did the late Mr Fulbright-Lloyd know about the two of you?” Andrew said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bergara start, but he kept his gaze firmly trained on Madej, who only flattened his mouth into a thin line before he replied:

“He couldn’t have. We only met, Bergara and I, on the night of the party.”

Andrew felt Steven shift beside him - Andrew could practically feel how he itched with wanting to ask questions himself, but he kept quiet. Privately, Andrew raised an eyebrow at Madej’s confession - he would have never guessed it from the familiarity between them. And yet for some reason he didn’t doubt the truth of it.

“I don’t suppose he happened upon you, and you felt - cornered,” Andrew said and swirled the bourbon in his glass. Madej stared at him.

“What- like you did just now?” he said archly. “Well, I can only give you my word that not only did that not happen, I also wouldn’t have the guts to - to drown someone, no matter how cornered I felt.”

“We were both occupied,” Bergara cut in, coldly. “Away from all the fireworks. But you plainly see how anything we say would - or rather wouldn’t - hold up in court.”

“I do see,” Andrew said, and what was more, if they were the sort to hurt anyone to hide their secret, they would have been more careful than this. They’d left the goddamn door unlocked.

“We all thought it was a dreadful accident,” Madej said then, quieter. “But I’m sure you saw the headlines in the rags already. I’m their favorite suspect - someone was eager to tell them we’d exchanged harsh words.”

Andrew hadn’t seen the headlines, but by the way Steven shifted beside him again, he’d wager he had read them.

Madej sighed and, shoulders slumped, brought a hand over his eyes. “I just... This is all quite a lot to deal with, on top of a failing career.”

It was the way Bergara moved in, defiantly in spite of Steven and Andrew’s presence, to press a hand to Madej’s shoulder, that finally convinced Andrew. He gulped down the bourbon in one sweep, grimaced at the burn of it, set the glass down on the table beside the empty coffee cups, and said:

“Is there anything you can tell us about the night in question, that you think would help our investigation?”

Madej looked up at Bergara and Bergara looked down at Madej, still with his hand on his shoulder, and then they both looked back at Andrew.

“If I were you, I’d go talk to Bella - Isabelle Dunway,” Bergara said. “She might know something.”

“Why would you say that?”

Bergara shrugged. “They were lovers, her and Fulbright-Lloyd. An open secret, you might say.”

Andrew couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at them at that, and Madej looked a bit bashful, lifting his glass to his face.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Andrew said and got up. Steven set down his untouched glass and followed suit, still without saying anything. Andrew lifted his hat from the dresser and perched it on his head a little precariously.

“As far as I’m concerned, _your_ secret is safe. I don’t give a shit,” he said and walked out.

“Okay, what secret?” Steven demanded, when they had gotten as far as the car. Andrew already had his hand on the door handle, but he sighed and squinted at Steven in the bright California sunlight.

“What do you think?” he said tiredly. He watched Steven look back at him across the roof of the car, eyes narrowed and mouth thin as the gears turned. That treacherous, traitorous sense of hope fluttered somewhere in Andrew’s stomach, and he was loath to admit how much of it was hanging on whatever Steven was about to say.

“Oh,” was all Steven said, when he finally opened his mouth. He tapped his hand against the hood of the car, seemingly indecisive. And then he said: “But you don’t give a shit.”

“I really don’t,” Andrew lied, and wrenched the door open and sat down. He was glad Steven was driving, because that meant he could stare out the passenger side window the entire way over to Bella Dunway’s and not look at him even once.

* * *

**Part V**

* * *

“I don’t want to be a nag,” Steven said, when they were approaching Bella Dunway’s door, after having the gate opened by a disgruntled caretaker. “But would you please include me in the talks this time?”

“I didn’t mean to exclude you,” Andrew said, and clenched his fists where they were safely hidden in his pockets. “It just happened that way. You’re welcome to chime in any time you like, you know.”

Steven huffed irritably. “Give me some credit,” he muttered. “I do know when not to open my big mouth, contrary to popular opinion.”

Andrew wanted to tell him that he knew, and that he was sorry, and a million other things that he deserved to hear - but Steven had already pressed the doorbell and they could hear footsteps approaching, so Andrew used the moment to school his features into something neutral and amiable.

“Good day, ma’am,” he said to the maid who opened the door and blinked at them. “We’re detectives with the police department, here to talk to Miss Dunway.”

“Is she expecting you?” the maid asked with a curtsy that seemed more compulsive than anything else.

“What part of _‘detectives with the police department here to talk’_ was unclear?” Andrew said, and, well, so much for neutral and amiable. But what the hell, she did let them in at that, even though she barely dared to look at them after.

Both of them took off their hats, and when the maid led them into the parlor, Steven let him take the lead. Andrew entered, hat in hand, to find Miss Isabelle Dunway on a green chaise lounge, reading the paper, wearing a flower-patterned dressing gown that did wonders for her fair complexion.

“Detectives from the police department,” the maid said with another curtsy, and Miss Dunway looked up, lips parted in an unspoken question.

“Hello, Miss Dunway. You’ve met my partner, Steven Lim,” Andrew said without preamble. “How do you do.”

“Gentlemen! Can I offer you some refreshments?”

“No thank you,” Steven said and inclined his head, hat pressed to his stomach with both hands. Andrew glanced at him, tempted to accept her offer, but then decided that solidarity was the way to go and shook his head minutely. Miss Dunway said something to the maid, who curtsied once more and disappeared.

“Sit down, please,” Miss Dunway said and straightened up, careful to keep her gown modestly closed all the while. Her feet, as Andrew noted when she crossed her legs, were bare.

Unbidden, Steven’s words from the night of the murder echoed in Andrew’s mind: _“Do you fancy Isabelle Dunway?”_ Andrew wondered if it was Steven who did, if that would account for the stiff way he held himself by Andrew’s side, when they once more sat down on a couch beside each other.

The couch was angled towards the chaise lounge so that the three of them formed the points of an acute triangle, Andrew closest to her and Steven farthest away. The lack of a coffee table between them was conspicuous, Andrew thought.

“I’m hardly in a state to receive visitors, much less handsome gentlemen such as yourselves,” she said and patted her blonde hair, swept away from her face but otherwise flowing free. She looked tired under the makeup but was no less beautiful for it, Andrew thought. It was easy to believe she worked in movies. He shifted on the couch and said:

“We’re sorry to bother you, Miss Dunway. We would like to ask you about the night of the party and the death of Mr Fulbright-Lloyd.”

The maid entered then, carrying a tray with a bottle of sparkling wine and three flutes. She set the tray down on a table beside the chaise lounge and filled only one of them, which she handed to Miss Dunway, before leaving the three of them alone again.

“If you change your minds,” she said and gestured to the tray, before she took a sip from the glass.

“Miss Dunway,” Andrew said, in what he hoped was a prompting tone that wasn’t too forward. She arched her impeccable eyebrows at him, and then she lowered the glass and said:

“Oh! Well, I don't know what to tell you, to be honest. What is it you want to know?”

“If you pardon me saying, miss, you don’t seem so terribly broken up about the fact that your lover met an untimely death.”

Dunway’s mouth thinned into a line, but Andrew could tell she wasn’t going to deny the accusation when she straightened her back further.

“How a lady grieves is her own business,” she said. “Did you ever lose anyone you cared about, Detective Ilnyckyj?”

Andrew opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Steven cut in.

“You’re quite the altruist, Miss Dunway, to be able to comfort the widow of the victim so selflessly while grieving yourself.”

Andrew was grateful for how her attention shifted to his partner, giving him a chance to inhale again, watch the discussion unfold. Andrew had set his hat down between them and he regretted it. He wished he was holding it, like Steven still did, so he would have something to do with his hands.

“So what if I am,” Dunway said and took another sip of the sparkling wine before she sighed. She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs to lean forward, but kept the hand on her dressing gown when she set the glass down on the floor.

“The truth is, Herbert had a thing with most anybody in a skirt who worked on his movies,” she said without looking at them. “Hard to fully grieve the loss of something that was never yours.”

“I imagine his wife didn’t much like it though,” Steven said, but softly, like he was trying to be considerate about it.

“That was how he met Elaine,” Dunway said and shifted in her seat again, something haughty making its way into her tone. “She worked on one of his early films - a silent one, of course. She would never have become a film star if it weren’t for him, and she knew he did it with everyone else too.”

Here she stretched out her foot, as if to prod Andrew’s leg with her toe. Andrew followed the movement, tensely, as Dunway added:

“She had a fair amount of lovers too, and he never complained.”

Her leg swung back without making contact, and Andrew could exhale. But then her foot caught on the champagne flute on the floor, toppling it with a tinkle and splashing its contents all over Andrew’s pants leg.

“Oh, shoot!” Dunway exclaimed, as Andrew rose quickly to scoop up the glass and save what little remained in it.

The fabric was soaked through, but it was only a damp spot near the hem, so he wasn’t particularly bothered by it; what he was bothered by was Dunway standing up as well, touching a hand to his chest.

“You keep it darling,” she said. “Here, I’ll top you off.”

“Thank you, I-” Andrew tried to decline, but Dunway was already brandishing the bottle with one hand, and she filled a second glass for herself after topping him off. She set the bottle down, lifted the glass to clink it against the one in his hand and said:

“I could tell you were in need of some the moment you walked in, detective.”

Her eyes were blue, Andrew noted. And she was right, was the thing.

Andrew wasn’t in the habit of saying no to alcohol, so he put the flute to his lips and downed the contents in one fell swoop. The bubbles tickled his nose and he had to scrunch up his face to suppress the sneeze.

When he looked back at her, she was smiling.

Andrew heard Steven get up; felt his presence behind him even if Dunway’s gaze didn’t shift to give him away.

“Did you get what you wanted, detectives?” she asked and leaned back, hand still demurely on her chest to keep her dress gown from falling open.

“I suppose we did,” Steven said with an uncharacteristic edge to his voice. Andrew turned to him, but Steven had already put his hat back on his head and was walking away.

Solidarity, Andrew thought, and snatched his own hat from the couch, and gave Dunway one last, conciliatory nod.

“Feel free to drop in anytime,” she said, flute of sparkling wine still in hand. Andrew honestly didn’t know what to make of it.

This time, Steven beat Andrew to the car with such a margin that he had taken his place behind the wheel and was already backing up so he could bring it around.

“Hey,” Andrew said as he wrenched the passenger side door open to hop inside. “What’s the matter? I let you in on the talks this time, you were there for all of it.”

“Sure I was,” Steven said, looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t hit the fountain in the middle of the yard. “But the two of you were having your own conversation anyway.”

“I didn’t - that was all her,” Andrew protested. Steven stepped on the gas and sent off a spray of gravel as they made for the gate.

“Yeah I bet. Did her lipstick taste good with that champagne?”

Caught completely off guard, Andrew stared at Steven, trying desperately to parse the bitter note of his words. But Steven kept his eyes stubbornly on the road, and Andrew figured there was nothing he could say either way.

He knew how much it hurt to see someone you liked show interest in someone else, and just because it was just a celebrity crush on Steven’s part didn’t mean it was any less painful, he supposed.

* * *

**Part VI**

* * *

“I have a feeling about Isabelle Dunway,” Steven said when they were back at the station, by Andrew’s desk. Andrew didn’t go down into the morgue if he didn’t absolutely have to.

“Oh, you do, do you,” Andrew said, and if he didn’t quite manage to keep his tone from being scathing, well, Steven would live. He was sitting on the edge of Andrew’s desk, one hand in his pocket and the other idly toying with the tie tucked into his green sweater vest.

He shot Andrew a look.

“I mean I think there’s something fishy about her,” he said, and Andrew couldn’t say he much cared for this irritable version of Steven. Being irritable was _his_ forte dammit, Steven’s was being happy-go-lucky and laughing at Andrew’s ornery disposition.

Well, figures Steven would want a reason to go meet Miss Dunway again. _Guess I’m going to have to go out there and find love on my own,_ Steven had said. Andrew would wish him all the luck in the world, but mostly he wished that Steven would find this love somewhere Andrew didn’t have to see.

So Andrew kicked back in his chair, tugged off his own tie, put his feet up on the desk and said:

“Let’s maybe explore some other avenues of investigation first, cowboy.”

“Okay, like what?” Steven asked and crossed his arms. Like a personified godsend, Bianchi chose that moment to approach them with his arms full of binders and papers and fixed Andrew with a bashful look.

“I did what you always tell me to do, detective,” he said, and Andrew blinked. He had no idea what he always told Bianchi to do, and even less of an idea what it entailed now.

“Oh! Uh,” Andrew said, and Bianchi held out the stack of binders in his hands.

“I followed the money.”

“Good!” Andrew said and slipped his feet off the desk. “Great! Let’s see it!”

Bianchi spread his findings out on the space vacated by Andrew’s feet, and all three of them hunched in over them.

“So, things aren’t going so swell in the movie business these days,” Bianchi said and pointed to some statistics that had Andrew going cross-eyed just looking at them. “And it seems the Fulbright-Lloyds had to take a not so insignificant loan to start production on their latest project.”

“Uh-huh,” Steven said encouragingly, eyeing the papers closely. Bianchi swallowed and kept going:

“Well, so their fortunes were pretty much depending on getting this movie done and doing well at the box office.”

“So who’d want to sabotage it by _murder?”_ Andrew said, frowning in confusion.

“I don’t, uh,” Bianchi said. He pulled a paper from the pile and then tried again. “Isabelle Dunway was offered a lucrative deal by a rivaling studio, but Mr Fulbright-Lloyd refused to break contract, probably because he had so much riding on this project.”

“Ah-ha!” Steven exclaimed so loudly that Andrew winced.

“Yeah,” Bianchi said slowly. “And, uh, I found this insurance claim.”

He pulled another paper from the pile and placed it gingerly before Andrew, like an offering. Andrew forced his eyes to focus, and after skimming the contents he went back and read it from the start, more intently.

“What?” Steven said and leaned in. Andrew’s cheeks flushed with proximity as Steven’s breath ghosted over his face.

“If this movie project fails due to factors beyond the producers’ power, the Fulbright-Lloyds stand to receive quite a hefty sum of insurance money,” Andrew summed up. His voice was hoarse, too gruff to be his, he thought.

Steven looked up and into Andrew’s eyes, and Andrew’s heart seemed to skip a beat. But then he straightened up to look at Bianchi, and Andrew’s pulse could get back on track again.

“So I guess this means the living Mr Fulbright-Lloyd now,” Steven said. “You don’t suppose we need to pay him a visit, too?”

With a sigh, Andrew reached for his tie. There was no use in telling Steven he could do it on his own, that much he knew by now.

* * *

The surviving Fulbright-Lloyd brother lived in the same neighborhood as his deceased relative - not close enough that they passed the house in question, but Andrew recognized the area even if he hadn’t recognized the address.

“I’m sorry, master Fulbright-Lloyd isn’t home at the moment, can I take a message?”  said the man who opened the door. Andrew wrinkled his nose at the title use and threw a glance over his shoulder, at the pair of gleaming cars in the garage beside their own, scuffed up Model T that had been outdated even when the police department had first purchased it and that a precious few knew how to drive.

“Yeah,” Andrew said. “Tell him we’d like to talk to him, and that if the comfort of his own home doesn’t cut it, he’s gonna have to come down to the station.”

With that he tipped his hat and turned on his heel to walk back to the old Model T. Steven followed, vindictively bumping into Andrew with his elbow.

Andrew wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him. Or possibly push him up against the car and kiss him senseless. Either option was completely out of the question, so Andrew opened the car door and, against his own better judgement, said:

“Hey, how about I buy you dinner?”

The glimpse of the old, joyful Steven when he looked at Andrew and smiled made it almost worth it.

“Well, if you’re buying,” Steven said and got in the car. Andrew allowed himself a second of smiling at nothing at all before he followed suit.

Neither of them noticed the car that quietly rolled out from an alleyway and started following them into Los Angeles proper.

* * *

“I don’t want to be alarmist,” Steven said as he followed Andrew inside the restaurant. “But you _do_ know who the Italians that own this place are, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Andrew said and waved at Adrianna, who was cleaning a table and arguing with a customer and managed to wave back all the same. “Amadeo and I go way back.”

“Oh, you do, do you,” Steven said hesitantly, but sat down at the table when Andrew did, though he couldn’t seem to keep from casting nervous glances around him. He didn’t much seem to care for the incredible beachfront view of the establishment.

Andrew kept his eye on Adrianna, but she disappeared behind the curtain before he could catch her attention again, and soon enough, a man, twice Andrew’s size whichever way you sliced it, emerged to sweep him up from his chair in a bone crushing hug.

“Ilnyckyj, my favorite police, how are you!” the man said, his unmistakable Italian accent rolling the words out like a stormfront. “And you brought a friend!”

Amadeo set Andrew down to pull Steven up by his shoulders and plant a wet kiss on each cheek. Andrew grinned at Steven’s gobsmacked expression; Amadeo liked to play it up for newcomers.

“I’m good, thank you, Amadeo,” Andrew said and sat back down. “This is Steven Lim, my case partner.”

“You have a good look, ah, about you,” Amadeo said and sat down in the third chair at the table and put his fist on the checkered tablecloth. “Where are you from, Steven Lim?”

“I’m, uh, my family is Malaysian Chinese,” Steven said slowly, looking from Amadeo to Andrew, like he didn’t quite know what to make of the situation.

“Good! Good,” Amadeo said and hit his fist to the table. “If Ilnyckyj here won’t marry my daughter, maybe you will!”

“Steven’s not Catholic,” Andrew said, just to see Amadeo wail and tear at his greying hair, which was still thicker than Andrew’s had ever been.

“Oh, tragedy,” Amadeo sighed, as the daughter in question came up to them and deftly poured a glass of red wine for each of them. Adrianna gave Andrew an exasperated smile that he reciprocated wryly as she straightened up and said:

“Don’t marry me off just yet, papa. Who will serve the guests?”

While father and daughter fell into a discussion in Italian so quick Andrew couldn’t keep up, Steven leaned across the table to whisper:

“He wants you to marry his daughter?”

“Not really,” Andrew said. “I’m divorced. She can do better.”

The discussion ended with Adrianna setting the bottle down on the table and walking away with a haughty sniff, and Amadeo turned back to them to raise his glass.

“Gentlemen, we will feed you! Don’t worry about the wine, it is on the house!”

He took a sip, got up, and clapped his free hand on Andrew’s shoulder with such force that he buckled a little under the pressure.

“My nephew, he is doing good, yes?”

“He’s doing good work, yes,” Andrew confirmed, and Amadeo laughed heartily before he left them, swirling his glass of red wine happily.

“His nephew?” Steven asked as they raised their own wine glasses in a half-hearted toast.

“Adam Bianchi,” Andrew said, and, with something akin to glee, watched Steven choke on his sip of wine. “On his sister’s side.”

He relished his own sip, let the tang of tannins seep into his tongue for a second before he swallowed. Steven was going to have to be quick if he didn’t want Andrew to finish the bottle on his own.


	3. Act Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The case takes a turn, and Andrew takes a plunge.

* * *

**Part VII**

* * *

The wine - more than the one bottle, as it turned out - had settled pleasantly in Andrew’s stomach and head, and, judging by the way he leaned on him, it had settled in Steven’s feet. Andrew was content, because this was the Steven he was used to, happy and easygoing, talking a mile a minute about nothing in particular, and Andrew was selfishly taking advantage of it.

On impulse, with the rush of the sea filling his ears, Andrew pulled Steven with him out on a pier sticking out in the dark of the water. Steven laughed and protested half-heartedly, but he let himself be dragged. Andrew had forgotten his hat back at the restaurant, but it was okay, because the breeze in his hair felt divine.

“What now?” Steven laughed when they reached the end of the pier and had to stop. Andrew just slung his arm around Steven’s shoulder and breathed in deep.

“It’s the end of the line, buddy,” Andrew said nonsensically. Steven hummed, like he’d said something profound, and swayed a little on his feet.

“I can’t believe Bianchi is the nephew of a mobster,” Steven mumbled then, and Andrew snorted.

“A very well-behaved nephew of a mobster,” Andrew said. “And Amadeo is very well behaved himself, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah, sure!” Steven said and swayed a little harder. “I bet he asks people if their cement shoes are comfortable before he heaves them into the harbour!”

The laugh that bubbled out of him surprised Andrew even more than it did Steven. He bent double over it, his grip on Steven’s shoulders the only reason he didn’t fall over, laughing so hard he felt tears pool at the corners of his eyes.

“You okay there, buddy?” Steven said, his voice light with laughter as well, and Andrew couldn’t answer, he just wiped his eyes with the back of his hand as the laughter started to subside.

“Just enjoy the view, Steven,” Andrew said at last. He managed to straighten up and open his eyes again, against the smooth darkness of the sea at night.

“I am,” Steven said, but he said it quietly.

Andrew wanted to look at him, discern the reason for it, but the gleam of the lights from the city behind them reflected in the black water had caught his eye and he was lost, thinking about the pool of water around Herbert Fulbright-Lloyd, the wet sound of his arm detaching from the tiles when he pulled at it.

The wine and food turned heavy in Andrew’s stomach, and not even the reassuring warmth of Steven at his side could do anything about it. He sighed heavily and turned, away from the water, slipping his arm off Steven’s shoulder in the process.

“Hey, are you-” Steven started to say, but Andrew held up a hand. A lone figure was approaching on the pier, and it was more than the wine that made something sour climb up Andrew’s throat at the sight.

“Detective Ilnyckyj,” the shape said. The voice was familiar but it wasn’t until he passed into the circle of light cast by a lantern on the pier that Andrew recognized him - Harold Fulbright-Lloyd himself, the brother of the murder victim, in the flesh.

“What are you doing here?” Andrew said, unable to bother with formalities. Fulbright-Lloyd was dressed in a long coat and had his hat pressed down over his ears, like he didn’t want to be recognized. He pulled his hands out of his coat pockets in a pleading gesture.

“Look, I know you’ve been looking into my brother’s finances,” he said, and Andrew blinked. “I know- I mean I know how it looks, but I swear I didn’t do anything!”

“This isn’t the best way to make your case, Mr Fulbright-Lloyd,” Andrew said coldly. He was starting to regret leaving his hat, because bareheaded like this he didn’t look very imposing, and in this state he was going to need every advantage he could get.

Fulbright-Lloyd reached out and grabbed Andrew by his suit lapel, and Andrew blamed the inebriation for how his reactions were treacle slow. He grabbed his wrist, but not before Steven had grabbed his shoulder and Fulbright-Lloyd had been pushed a couple of steps to the side.

Later, Andrew would never quite be able to piece the sequence of events together - Steven pushed Fulbright-Lloyd or Fulbright-Lloyd pulled Steven, or maybe both happened at the same time, but at any rate, Andrew was holding on to Fulbright-Lloyd’s wrist but he didn’t have his arm around Steven anymore.

Steven made a noise, not quite a shout, but close, and his heel struck against the raised edge of the pier. Andrew saw his outstretched hand, wanted to reach out and grab it, but he was too slow and his fingers tangled in thin air as Steven went tumbling backwards, the wind catching his hat and tearing it off as he fell into the water.

Andrew heard himself shout Steven’s name, and while it registered on some level that Fulbright-Lloyd’s wrist slipped out of his grip, it was background noise to the piercing note of panic that permeated his body.

He barely had the presence of mind to shrug out of his suit jacket before he dove off the pier.

The water hit him like a wall, the shock of the cold stunning him for a second before he could focus his eyes in the murky darkness. Seeing Steven’s white shirt as a speck in the swirling black of the water was a hope so bright it almost pushed the air out of Andrew’s lungs, but he clamped his mouth shut and lunged for it.

This time, his fingers tangled in fabric and Andrew kicked with all his might to push the both of them upwards. He gulped in a deep breath as soon as he broke the surface, and treaded water furiously while he pulled at the fabric until he’d dragged Steven’s head above water. Andrew sent his mother a quiet thanks for teaching him to swim when he was a child, despite his vocal and sometimes even physical protestations. 

Struggling against the pull of the water to drag Steven’s sickeningly still body back to shore while keeping both of their heads above the surface was the longest and most arduous fight of Andrew’s life. When he finally put his foot to the sand he was beat, limp like a wrung out rag, but he used the last of his strength to pull Steven all the way out of the water before he collapsed to his knees.

Steven was limp and soaked through, his eyes closed but lips slightly parted with the way his neck had craned as he landed on the ground. Andrew, chest heaving painfully with every breath he took, cradled the back of Steven’s head and put his ear to his mouth, desperate to feel him breathing too.

His hand traveled blindly over Steven’s arm and chest, and Andrew didn’t know if he was just shaking too much to feel it, Steven’s breathing or pulse or any sign of life. His face was too pale in the moonlight, the rivulets of water that ran down his cheeks a grotesque imitation of tears. Andrew choked back something - a word or a breath or a sob, he didn’t know - and lifted Steven’s head from the grainy sand, cradling it in both hands now.

Steven couldn’t be dead, and it couldn’t be Andrew’s fault. Not like this, not when there was so much they hadn’t-

A cough convulsed through Steven’s body and sent a splatter of salt water down the front of his already drenched shirt. Then he arched with a deep inhalation, and for the first time since he broke the surface, Andrew felt like he could truly breathe again himself.

He kept one hand on Steven’s face even while he helped him sit up, and Steven coughed up some more water and wiped ineffectually at his mouth with his soaked sleeve.

“Hey,” Andrew said, and the hoarseness in his voice was foreign. “Hey, you’re okay.”

Steven didn’t answer, he only kept breathing. There was a horrible rasping sound on each exhalation, but Steven was _ breathing, _ which was the important part. His hand came up and grasped the back of Andrew’s neck for support, and when Steven finally opened his eyes, their foreheads were resting against each other.

“You absolute idiot,” Andrew said, but he was smiling. Steven’s eyes were black in the night, his eyelashes clumped together by salt and water, and even though they were all Andrew could see, he could tell Steven was smiling too. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and quiet, but steady. 

“I like it when you laugh.”

For a moment, Andrew didn’t know what to do. But then he clapped Steven on the back, gently, and said:

“All right, we need to get you out of these wet clothes before you catch pneumonia.”

“You’re wet too,” Steven pointed out when Andrew helped him to his feet - it wasn’t easy, because Andrew felt no less wrung out for the relief of Steven being alive.

“So we both need to get out of these clothes,” Andrew amended, too tired to even grimace at the unfortunate choice of words on his part.

“My place is pretty close,” Steven said with a little gasp as they started to walk, arms slung around each other. “We can - let’s go there.”

Andrew didn’t have it in him to argue, so he let Steven lead the way.

They stopped only once on the way - to borrow a telephone for Andrew to call the station and set them on Fulbright-Lloyd’s case. His plan was to maybe towel off his hair, get Steven dry and tucked into bed and then go down to the station to assist with the arrest himself. 

But Steven stripped down to his drawers, set his clothes to dry and insisted Andrew do the same; he could borrow Steven’s clothes, it was no problem. So Andrew found himself putting on one of Steven’s shirts that, surprisingly, fit him in the shoulders. Even though it wasn’t like Andrew was broad in any sense of the word, it had to be a veritable potato sack on Steven’s slender body. Steven had pulled on an undershirt and a sweater and sat down on his bed with a sigh, wearing a fresh set of drawers but no pants.

“I can still taste the damn salt water,” he mumbled and scratched at his scalp. Andrew, who had just finished buttoning his borrowed pants that were just on this side of a little tight, didn’t think it was strange to give Steven a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Somehow his hand stayed on Steven’s shoulder, and Steven grabbed his arm to pull him down on the bed beside him. Andrew, still too tired to argue, sat down

They sort of leaned on each other, exhausted and sore and gritty together, and even though Andrew had every intention in the world of getting up and putting his plan into motion, he closed his eyes for a second and that second turned into several and then he was fast asleep.

* * *

**Part VIII**

* * *

Andrew stirred awake slowly. He felt disoriented, because he knew he wasn’t in his own bed, but couldn’t quite grasp why he was so comfortable and relaxed anyway. He shifted, gingerly, and realized that the comfort was the warm weight of another body against his.

Opening his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that it was daylight spilling in through the window, to which he quietly said: “Ah, shit.”

Steven didn’t stir at Andrew’s voice. He was lying on his side, back to Andrew and head pillowed on his bent arm, and when Andrew raised himself on one arm, he could see that Steven’s chest was rising and falling with each breath. He must have laid them down and pulled the cover over them while Andrew was sleeping.

For a moment, Andrew was mesmerized by the perfect line of Steven’s eyelashes against his cheek. He wanted to reach out and touch his knuckles to Steven’s jaw, to see if his skin was as soft as it looked, because Andrew’s own jaw and throat itched with grainy stubble.

Instead Andrew pressed his knuckles to his own eyes and then, extricating himself as carefully as he could from the cover and the tangle of Steven’s naked legs, slipped out of the bed.

His borrowed clothes were wrinkled from sleep, but he touched one of his socks that he’d laid out to dry, grimaced when it turned out to be crusty with dried salt water, and let it be. 

Andrew padded into the kitchen, fully taking in Steven’s apartment for the first time. The peeling wallpaper and worn floorboards were positively spotless, and the decor was sparse but somehow very personal. A mat with brightly colored patterns was hanging on the wall beside a chest in the bedroom; candles in various states of melted were strewn around on every available flat surface, and on the kitchen wall there was a simple wooden cross that Andrew’s gaze sort of skipped over as he went to the cold pantry.

In the cold pantry he found a carton of five eggs and some butter, so Andrew set about making some scrambled eggs, remorselessly snooping around in Steven’s kitchen drawers to find utensils and seasoning.

When he finally dumped the scrambled eggs in the sizzling pan, he heard the rustling of bedclothes from the bedroom. Andrew looked over his shoulder and through the open door he saw Steven sit up on the bed. His black hair was completely flat on one side and bristling out like a hedgehog on the other, and he rubbed his eyes tiredly as he yawned.

“Good morning,” Steven called, and Andrew had to turn back to the eggs before he could reply.

“Morning. I hope you like eggs for breakfast.”

There was more sound of rustling behind him, but he refused to look. When Steven finally walked up to him, he was fully dressed, and he peered down on the stove with interest.

“Didn’t know you cooked,” he mumbled and turned away to pluck down the coffee pot from a shelf.

“Kind of had to learn,” Andrew said, affecting an air of easiness as he raked through the eggs with the wooden spatula. Just a few seconds more and it’d be done, he thought.

He realized Steven was looking at him, but when he looked back Steven averted his gaze to the coffee pot he was filling in the sink.

“Do you think they managed to grab the brother?” Steven said. Andrew watched him lift the pot and set it on the stove next to the pan to pour in the coffee grounds.

“I don’t know,” Andrew said with a sigh. The odds weren’t great, if he was being honest.

Steven’s fingers trembled a little when he struck the match and he looked serious as he lit the gas under the pot. Andrew wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder.

“But I have no doubt we’ll get him,” he said instead, and in the same instant he realized he’d overdone the eggs. With a muttered curse, he lifted the pan from the stove and shuffled the coagulated eggs around one last time, before he shoveled them out in approximately equal portions on the plates he’d set out.

Andrew figured it was best to pretend it was completely normal to sit down and eat breakfast with your colleague while the coffee boiled on the stove. Steven was one bite into the scrambled eggs when the coffee pot gave shrill whistle and he stumbled out of his chair to take it off the stove.

“I’d ask you how you take your coffee,” Steven said as he pulled out two chipped cups from the cupboard. “But I’m afraid I don’t have sugar or milk.”

“Black is fine,” Andrew said, though really he would have preferred to slip some brandy in there. Just to get through the day.

He accepted the cup gratefully in any case, without looking at Steven, and thought that he would like to get used to this sort of thing even though he knew he would never have the chance again.

* * *

If the air between them was charged when they made it down to the station it didn’t much matter because Bianchi came up to them at once and began to relay the developments on the case, talking quickly without looking up from his papers.

“It looks like the Fulbright-Lloyd brothers have been involved in some tax fraud,” Bianchi was telling them as Andrew pulled a hand over his face, wishing he’d had the opportunity to shave. “I don’t know that it would have become apparent if, uh, one of them hadn’t died and his estate had to be realized.”

“Wait, so-” Steven said, and Andrew pulled at Bianchi’s papers as if taking a closer look would make his brain work faster.

“So his brother wouldn’t have wanted him dead,” Andrew concluded.

“Well, if he did, it was a stupid move,” Bianchi confirmed quietly. “And anyway, I went through the witness statements and several people saw him during the fireworks when the murder took place.”

“So, at the very least, if he’s behind it he must have had someone do it for him,” Steven said.

“Do we know where he is?” Andrew asked. “He’s not in custody, is he?”

“No,” Bianchi confirmed. “We dispatched some officers to his house but he wasn’t there.”

“Of course not,” Andrew said and shifted his suspenders under his borrowed suit jacket before he put his hands in his pockets. “We need to talk to his staff. See if his cars are still there, send word to the train station, see if he’s purchased a ticket for an ocean liner-”

Bianchi was conscientiously writing down Andrew’s tirade, but Andrew noticed that Steven looked a little withdrawn, arms crossed and mouth firmly closed. After he’d sent Bianchi away to put things in motion, Andrew turned to him and asked:

“Everything all right?”

Steven started a little bit, like he hadn’t expected Andrew to take notice of him.

“Yeah,” he said and rubbed his arm absentmindedly. “Yeah, I’m fine. It just, it sounds like you’ve got things in hand. I’m not of much use on this case anymore, am I?”

Again, Andrew’s first instinct was to reassure Steven. But the truth was that there was not much Steven could do; this was just grunt police work, to chase down Fulbright-Lloyd and bring him in, and Andrew wondered if he ought to coat the let down with an exaggeratedly scathing comment. _ You were never much use on this case, Lim. _

His silence lasted a moment too long however, and Steven’s shoulders deflated.

“Hey, no,” Andrew said and stretched out his hand, foolishly. It hovered in the air between them, and Steven looked at it as if to dare Andrew to touch him. Andrew didn’t dare; he curled his fingers into a loose fist and lowered his hand, Steven untouched.

“It’s okay,” Steven said and put his own hands in his pockets. “I mean, it’s not as if I’m out of a job.”

“The case isn’t over,” Andrew found himself saying. “Who knows, we might need your expertise yet.”

“Let’s hope not,” Steven said, and a smile flickered over his features. “I mean, I thought we were trying to avoid dead bodies, as a general rule.”

“Yeah, no, of course,” Andrew said with a chuckle and scratched his neck. “I mean-”

He was interrupted by Bianchi tugging at his elbow, and for a short while Andrew’s attention was diverted by his logistical concerns.

Steven had already walked all the way over to the stairs down to the morgue, when Andrew could pull away.

“Hey, Steven!” he called, and Steven halted with one foot hovering above the first stair. “I- uh.”

Andrew stopped himself, the words crowding on his tongue but none quite managing to slip out. Steven looked oddly blank, his head tilted to show mild interest, but something was wrong, and Andrew didn’t know how to address it.

“Thanks for the clothes,” was what he got out in the end. Steven smiled, tightly.

“It’s nothing. Just- bring them to the office sometime and I can take them back home.”

Andrew watched him as he disappeared down the spiral staircase, and he couldn’t help but feel some page had been turned between them. He just hoped the book hadn’t closed entirely.

He shrugged himself out of the reverie. There was a case to deal with, a murder to solve.

Love like this never led anywhere anyway.

* * *

**Part IX**

* * *

“No sign of him yet,” Bianchi told him, and Andrew closed his eyes and rubbed at his face tiredly.

It had been a long day that promised to stretch even longer. The sun was already setting, the rays that found their way around the buildings tilted at such an angle that they bathed the office in golden light and highlighted Andrew’s rotten mood.

“But,” Bianchi said then, and Andrew slid his hand down, pulling his own eye open. “We talked to his secretary, and she said she purchased a train ticket for him, for today, to St. Louis.”

“Oh!” Andrew said and started to fumble for his tie before he remembered it was still back at Steven’s place, possibly completely ruined by saltwater. “Bianchi, get me a ticket to St. Louis too. When does the train leave?”

“It already departed. I’ll call the station and ask when the next one leaves,” Bianchi said regretfully. Andrew groaned and slumped back in his chair.

“It’s not going to be until tomorrow,” he said and pulled a hand through his hair. “Get me a ticket anyway, please. We have more time to prepare, and I can pack a change of clothes.”

“Do you want me to tell Lim?” Bianchi asked, making a note on his notepad.

Andrew remembered Steven’s face, pale and glistening in the moonlight, looking all too much like the corpse pulled out of a pool that had been the start of this whole sorry affair.

“Don’t bother,” he told Bianchi. “I can handle this on my own.”

* * *

Coming home wasn’t usually much of a relief for Andrew - he hadn’t bothered furbishing the place beyond the bare necessities, and some of his things from the old place were still in boxes stuffed into his closet - but this time he gave a satisfied sigh as he slid the door chain in place and was able to peel out of his borrowed jacket and shirt and socks.

Barefoot but in pants and undershirt, hooking his suspenders off his shoulders to dangle uselessly around his legs, Andrew decided that the first thing in order was a shave. Lord knew if he would have time for it the following morning. He walked into the washroom, the lone light bulb flickering morosely as he flicked the switch.

He looked himself in the cracked mirror, tracking the red bruising under his eyes, noting his chapped lips and the ungodly mess that was his hair, and sighed deeply. He looked like shit, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than scrape off the stubble and get a good night’s sleep.

He poured some water into the washbasin, too tired to even attempt to heat it, and was in the process of checking the sharpness of his razorblade when there was a knock on his door. With another sigh, Andrew set the razor down on the edge of the washbasin.

His landlord must have seen him walk in and probably wanted to talk to him about the rent again, even though Andrew paid it conscientiously every two weeks. He walked over to the door and wrenched it open as far as the door chain allowed, ready tell Mr Kowalczyk off for interrupting him.

The face appearing in the crack wasn’t Mr Kowalczyk, however. He was backlit by the yellow hallway light so that Andrew couldn’t quite make out his features; just enough to recognize the shape of Steven’s face and the halo of his bristly hair.

“Andrew,” Steven said, and Andrew closed the door. He breathed in sharply, unlatched the door chain and opened the door again, wider.

“What are you doing here?” Andrew breathed out. Steven crossed his arms.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

For a split second, Andrew contemplated just closing the door again. He knew nothing good would come of this, but in the end he knew he was unable to deny Steven anything. So he stepped to the side and allowed Steven to come in.

He expected Steven to have a look around, ask for his clothes back, maybe make some small talk, but instead Steven turned on his heel as soon as Andrew had closed the door and said:

“The case isn’t over, you said!”

Andrew lifted his hands, but found that he had nothing to say in his defense. Steven didn’t seem to care because he just went on:

“I know you didn’t want to work with me, but when we agreed to solve this case together, you said you’d let me in on it!”

“I did,” Andrew protested, weakly. “I mean, I didn’t- it’s not-”

“It’s not what? I had to hear from Adam that our suspect is on his way to St. Louis, and that you plan on following him tomorrow.”

“God dammit,” Andrew muttered and pulled a hand through his hair. “He wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

Steven didn’t say anything then, which surprised Andrew enough to look at him.

He had gone pale with rage and had his lips pressed into a thin line, eyes flaming under drawn eyebrows - Andrew had never seen Steven this mad, and in a way it made him beautiful. Incandescent.

“He wasn’t supposed to tell me,” Steven repeated slowly, and Andrew could tell he had to fight to keep from shouting. There was a brittle note to his voice that threatened to shatter like glass.

“I don’t want you to come with me,” Andrew said, interrupting whatever Steven had been about to say.

He watched the emotions play over Steven’s face, not quite sure how to interpret the look of shock and rage that flickered into a devastated sort of resignation. He seemed to shrink as the anger evaporated, and he pulled a hand over his eyes, tiredly. 

Andrew wanted to apologize. He bit his tongue though, and when Steven finally spoke again, it was quietly and with downcast eyes.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that from the start?”

“I didn’t-” Andrew broke off again, frustrated, and started pacing up and down the length of his tiny flat, with Steven standing dejected in the middle of it. “There’s nothing you can do in St. Louis! I didn’t want to bother you with-”

“I almost died, Andrew. You shouldn’t go after him alone.”

Andrew halted his pacing and stared.

“That’s why I- You almost _ died,  _ Steven!”

Steven raised his head and locked eyes with Andrew. A beat passed, where Andrew felt acutely aware of every inch of space between them, their combined breathing too loud in the confined space that had grown too hot - and yet the hairs on Andrew’s arms were standing on edge, like a chill had crept in, or as if there was a thunderstorm approaching.

“So you think I’m a liability,” Steven said and looked down again.

Andrew felt is metaphorical jaw hit the floor, but in reality he just parted his lips, too stunned to get a word out.

“Tell me to leave this case alone and I’ll do it,” Steven continued, and he swallowed like it cost him. “I just thought- I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” Andrew managed to say, but it was so small and insignificant in the face of his feelings. He wanted Steven to go back to shouting at him; anything but this quiet devastation.

He took a step closer, torn between trying to offer comfort and goading Steven back to hating him. Steven refused to look at him, and Andrew didn’t know what to do about it.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Steven muttered at last, crossing his arms, and Andrew wanted to yell at him. Instead he pulled both his hands through his hair and tried to figure out how to convey what he truly meant without actually saying it.

“Steven,” he said at last. “You almost died, and that’s why I don’t want you to come with me to St. Louis.”

“Because you think I’m gonna mess it up,” Steven said defensively, eyes firmly locked on his own crossed arms.

Andrew grabbed him by the shoulders in a move that surprised the both of them and pulled closer, so that Steven had to look up at him.

“No,” Andrew said, and tried to infuse that single syllable with every ounce of sincerity in his body. “Because I don’t want you to die, Steven.”

Steven blinked, and Andrew had to bite his own lower lip to keep more words from spilling out.  _ Because I love you. _

“I don’t want you to die either,” Steven whispered.

Andrew saw his eyes flicker down, to catch on his mouth, and it was like time slowed to a stop.

“Steven,” he breathed, and this close, when Steven looked back up into his eyes, he could see how the black of his pupils melted into the shadow of his eyelashes and left only a thin ring of amber around it.

Slowly, carefully, with every sense on high alert, Andrew slid one hand higher on Steven’s shoulder, so that his index finger slipped over his collar and touched the warm skin of Steven’s neck.

Steven didn’t move, his eyes didn’t waver from Andrew’s for a second.

“Steven,” Andrew said again. He loathed the edge of desperation that had snuck into his voice, but he felt Steven unfurl his arms to put his hand on his naked elbow. The contact was searing, his palm like a brand on Andrew’s skin, and then Steven whispered:

“Yes.”

With self-restraint Andrew didn’t know he possessed, he slowly slid his other hand up so he cupped Steven’s cheek, and then he angled his head upwards to press a kiss to his lips.


	4. Act Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things escalate, and Andrew is laid out.

* * *

**Part X**

* * *

Steven’s lips were cool and a little dry against his, and Andrew was too aware of all the space still separating them, the back of his neck itching with it. But then Steven pursed his lips and opened his mouth, his hand touching Andrew’s hip as he tilted his body closer, and it was a burst of heat that sparked across Andrew’s senses.

He must have made a sound, something desperate and deep in his throat, because Steven pulled him closer and slid his other hand up Andrew’s arm to curl his fingers around the sleeve of his undershirt.

Andrew wanted to put his arms around him, cling to him and never let go, but he was too afraid to upset the fragile, perfect balance between them. So he kept cradling Steven’s face, carefully caressing his cheek with his thumb like he had to reassure himself.

Andrew couldn’t resist the temptation though - he’d wanted it for so long, and here Steven was with his mouth slightly open against his - to draw Steven’s lower lip in between his. He wanted to use teeth, he wanted to pull and bite and lick, but he breathed in through his nose and kept it gentle. 

With an agonizing slide of wet lips, they both pulled back at the same time without letting go of each other. Steven blinked at Andrew, and his eyes were hooded and a little unfocused in a way that made heat pool in Andrew’s stomach.

“The cat’s out of the bag, huh?” Andrew said, his face pulling into a grin almost in spite of himself. Steven blinked, and his fingers uncurled on Andrew’s sleeve, his thumb accidentally rubbing against Andrew’s skin and sending a shiver down his spine.

“I didn’t even know there was a cat,” he said, nonsensically, and Andrew breathed out a laugh. Steven smiled at that and added: “Never mind the bag.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying,” Andrew said, but it didn’t much matter because he had kissed Steven and Steven wasn’t pulling away. He was still right there, and he nudged his blunt nose against Andrew’s in a gesture so intimate it stunned him.

“Can you kiss me again?” he asked earnestly, and Andrew wanted to tell him there was nothing in the world he would rather do, but he settled for sliding his fingers into the short hairs at the back of Steven’s head and kissing him again.

This time it was Steven who pulled at Andrew’s lower lip, and he had no reservations about using his teeth. The groan Andrew let out in response wasn’t very becoming, but it seemed to incite a reaction in Steven, who shifted to pull Andrew even closer with both hands on his hips.

“Oh,” Andrew said and turned his face to the side so that Steven’s mouth dragged over his cheek. He put his hands back down on Steven’s shoulder, trying to put enough distance between them for him to breathe. “Steven, hold your hosses.”

“Why?” Steven mumbled, still with his mouth to Andrew’s cheek, and Andrew exhaled tersely.

“We gotta- We can’t just fumble like this,” he said, regretfully. Steven just slid his hands up a little, hooking his thumbs in the lining of Andrew’s - or technically Steven’s - pants, and Andrew was dangerously close to losing his train of thought.

Steven nosed up the line of Andrew’s jaw and when he spoke his breath washed over Andrew’s ear, making him shudder.

“You said you didn’t care, about Madej and Bergara. And now you’ve kissed me.”

“That I have,” Andrew said and couldn’t stop himself from slowly rubbing the knuckle of his thumb against Steven’s neck. “And I’d do it again, but you need to- I don’t want you to look at me different, after.”

That, at least, had Steven pulling away a little.

“I didn’t know I was looking at you anyway special,” he said, half teasing, and Andrew closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Steven’s because it was easier than meeting his gaze.

“Maybe I was the one doing the looking,” he admitted, eyes shut. “But this isn’t- it’s not some passing fancy, Steven.”

Steven’s hand traveled up Andrew’s chest and he felt his curled index finger push at his chin and tilt his head upward. Andrew opened his eyes to Steven looking intently at him.

“I didn’t think it was,” Steven whispered and then sealed his mouth over Andrew’s in a third kiss.

Andrew lost count of the kisses after that; Steven pressed them haphazardly to his mouth and he was helpless under the onslaught. He didn’t even realize Steven was pulling at him toward his bedroom until their legs tangled as Steven hit the edge of Andrew’s bed. He sat down, pulling Andrew down on top of him.

With Andrew’s knees bracketing his hips, Steven had to tilt his head upwards to maintain the kiss which provided Andrew with the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue inside his mouth.

Steven made a noise and his hands on Andrew’s waist twitched. Andrew withdrew immediately, sitting up straight in his lap and leaning back to look Steven in the eye.

Steven’s cheeks were flushed and his lips were red and wet and parted where he stared up at Andrew, exposing the long line of his throat that Andrew wanted to press his lips to.

Andrew took a deep breath and said:

“We can- we don’t have to.”

In lieu of a reply, Steven tugged Andrew’s undershirt out of the pants and slid his hands up under it, to press his palms against Andrew’s back. Andrew’s breath hitched, and he stared down at Steven in shock.

“Your tongue,” Steven said, his voice uncharacteristically gruff as he maintained eye contact.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Andrew said, and his mouth was suddenly dry with the enormity of the situation.

“Put your tongue back in my mouth please, Andrew,” Steven said, and Andrew might have imagined the nasality that gave Steven’s voice a whining tone, but he certainly didn’t imagine the hot rush that pooled in his own groin at the words.

“Are you sure?” Andrew breathed and watched Steven’s forehead crease in a frown. Andrew prepared himself for rejection, but what he didn’t prepare himself for was Steven falling backwards and pulling him down with him so that Andrew had to brace himself with his hands on either side of Steven’s face, felt his hair flop over his forehead

“Your eyes are beautiful,” Steven mumbled, and Andrew blinked, distracted by the way Steven pushed up his undershirt further to roam his hands over his back.

“Steven,” Andrew protested and had to fight to not press down into the heat of his yielding body. “What- tell me what you want.”

“I thought I just did,” Steven said, but then he pulled the undershirt over Andrew’s head so it got tangled in his armpits, and Andrew had to sit up to get rid of it.

Steven used the opportunity to undo the buttons of Andrew’s pants, and Andrew was just quick enough to throw the shirt away and grab his hand and press it to the bed beside them as he folded back down, bracing his other hand beside Steven’s head.

“Fuck, Andrew,” Steven said, and Andrew didn’t know that he’d ever heard Steven say that before. It sent a thrill down his spine, which he wasn’t very proud of.

“I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret,” Andrew said, as sincerely as he could while he was half naked and panting on top of his best friend. To make matters worse, Steven rolled his body up against his, and Andrew couldn’t deny that Steven was just as affected as he was.

“Andrew,” Steven said gently, almost admonishingly. Andrew felt his free hand travel up his back to bury itself in his hair and Andrew curled into the touch, helplessly. “For the longest time I thought you loathed me. You wouldn’t even _ look  _ at me after that night I hugged you, and I thought- well.”

Andrew hung his head, pressed his forehead against Steven’s clothed chest and just breathed.

“I could never loathe you,” he murmured at last and lifted his head to finally press a kiss to Steven’s throat. Steven hummed softly and carded his fingers through Andrew’s hair, stretching on the bed underneath Andrew’s weight.

“I have never done this before,” Steven said, and Andrew could feel the words vibrate under his skin. “But I want to, with you. In a way I’ve never wanted before.”

“Don’t,” Andrew said quietly as he reached down to open the buttons on Steven’s pants and push up his sweater. “Don’t say things like that.

“Then what am I supposed to say?” Steven asked as they scrambled up the bed together and did the best they could to rid each other of their clothing as quickly as possible.

“I don’t know,” Andrew admitted, but he was laughing, and Steven was smiling too.

Somehow being naked with him felt both natural and wonderful when they finally settled down together, the planes of their bodies slotting together like it was meant to be.

Andrew buried his face in the crook of Steven’s neck, breathed in the scent of him, unwashed and heady with a hint of the chypre cologne he’d dabbed himself with that morning, and this time Andrew allowed his tongue to dart out to taste the salt and warmth of his skin.

Steven let out a huff of breath, almost a laugh, at the sensation. Andrew smiled and kissed the point where Steven’s jaw met his throat and noted that Steven’s stubble, faint though it was, still scraped against his lips.

“Andrew,” Steven gasped and raked his fingers down Andrew’s back, thrashing a little on the bed. His nails dug into skin, but Andrew relished the sting of it and finally acquiesced to Steven’s wish and kissed him, pressing his tongue in between pliant lips. Steven pushed back with his own tongue and he tasted so sweet and so deeply of himself that Andrew gave another moan, unreservedly and unashamedly.

Steven’s hands traveled lower to clutch at Andrew’s ass, and Andrew moaned again. He shifted his legs to sit up a little and Steven made a keening noise as he blindly tried to follow him up. Andrew put a hand to his chest to keep him down and then put his other hand to his mouth and spat in his palm.

Steven looked at him with glazed eyes, questioning, but when Andrew put his spit-slick hand to his cock, his eyes fluttered shut again. He gave a groan and Andrew eagerly captured his mouth in a kiss to swallow it down.

Steven was a frighteningly adept study; he angled his head to allow Andrew better access, and then he slipped his own hand in between them to return the favor. Steven’s fingers were nimble and sure in a way that Andrew’s trembling hands weren’t, and Andrew had to bite down on Steven’s collar bone so he wouldn’t moan yet again.

“It feels,” Steven panted as his free hand traveled from Andrew’s ass back to his hair to clutch at it hard enough that tears pooled at the corners of his eyes. “It feels so much, oh-”

Steven turned his head to muffle his groan against his own shoulder as he came, and Andrew was lost in a haze of sensation so all-consuming that the orgasm that Steven wrung out of him in return felt like a surprise.

Andrew collapsed on top of him, breathing heavily and vaguely aware that very soon the situation would become untenable and uncomfortable, but was completely unable to give a damn in the moment.

Steven gave a low chuckle that he felt more than heard, and Andrew closed his eyes against the sensation of his fingers carding gently through his hair. If he could, he’d stay here forever.

* * *

**Part XI**

* * *

In the end, Andrew rolled off Steven despite his vague protests, pulled on his drawers, and went to warm some water for them to wash up. Steven sat up on the edge of the bed and surveyed the mess on his chest and stomach, almost curiously dragging his fingers through it, and Andrew wished he was a decade younger so he could go right back and start from the top, because he desperately wanted to watch the face Steven made as he came.

But alas, he was in his late twenties and had a modicum of responsibility with none of the quick recuperation, so he dipped a towel in the now lukewarm water on the stove and sat down beside Steven to wipe him down as best he could.

Steven laughed and squirmed a little under the attention, and somehow it turned into a half-hearted wrestling match, with Steven trying to overpower Andrew and take the towel from him. It ended when Andrew snapped the towel at Steven’s side with a wet smack.

“Stop, stop!” Steven pleaded and curled protectively in on himself, holding up his hands. Andrew sat up, grinning maniacally and let the towel fall to the floor before he reached out to grasp Steven’s raised hand. He brought it to his mouth to brush a kiss to Steven’s knuckles before he let go and got to his feet to pick up the towel again.

Andrew went to turn the gas off as the water had begun to steam. He heard Steven move about behind him, getting dressed, and a comfortable feeling settled somewhere under his ribs. He could get used to this, he thought. He would very much like to get used to it.

Andrew filled a glass of water from the tap and went back, the floorboards creaking under his weight before he sat down on the bedside again and offered the glass to Steven.

Steven looked at him with raised eyebrows, but accepted the glass and took a deep gulp before he set it down on the bedside table. He’d wrangled his trousers back on, but his shirt was piled in his lap, and Andrew couldn’t stop himself from putting his hand to his bare chest, brushing his palm down the smooth planes of it. 

“I'm not looking at you different, am I?” Steven asked, and there was a small note of worry in his voice. Andrew looked up at him, and Steven was looking at him like his answer would mean everything. Andrew swallowed and let his hand rest on Steven’s thigh.

“Maybe it's me who's different.”

Steven made an inquisitive little hum and shifted to lace their fingers together over his lap.

“So is that good?”

“Maybe,” Andrew said with a little laugh. “I mean, I thought you had your sights set on Bella Dunway.”

“You’re kidding me,” Steven said, gaping openly. “Why, it was you she was swooning all over, didn’t you notice?”

“Sure I noticed she was trying to be charming,” Andrew scoffed and poked Steven in the stomach with their interlaced hands. Steven gasped and pulled up his shirt as a shield with his other hand.

“Charming? She was practically draping herself over you!” he said and then pulled back his hand to sling the shirt around his shoulder like a cape. Andrew was grinning like a fool and couldn’t stop when Steven fluttered his eyelashes dramatically and pitched his voice higher in a gaudy imitation of the actress.

“Oh, Detective Ilnyckyj, whatever shall I do, I seemed to have spilled my champagne _ all  _ over your-”

“All right, all right!” Andrew interrupted and grabbed the shirt playfully. Steven turned his upper body so the shirt slid off his shoulder, and he gave Andrew an exaggerated wink as he lifted his shoulder in a mock sultry move to look over it at him.

But Andrew didn’t meet his eyes. His gaze had caught on Steven’s naked shoulder, and the gears in his head were turning.

“What?” Steven said, dropping his shoulder and the act. Andrew didn’t move, staring at nothing.

“She was trying to charm me,” he said slowly, and Steven nodded, also slowly but exaggeratedly so.

“I hate to break this to you, Andrew,” he said with a little smile. “But you’re a catch.”

He followed his words up by gently capturing Andrew’s chin between his fingers and leaned in, but Andrew grabbed his hand and pulled it down to look him in the eyes.

“No, no, she wanted to distract me,” he said. She had kept her dressing gown demurely fastened the entire time even when she reached out her leg to touch him.

“From what?” Steven said, frowning. Andrew squeezed his fingers.

“I suppose we need to find that out,” he said.

* * *

A belated sense of urgency made the trip down to the station to get the car a study in frustration. They both hopped into the battered Model T at long last, even though Andrew once more tried to convince Steven to stay behind.

“Not a chance,” Steven said, but this time he smiled about it, and while Andrew still felt a little gnawing worry at the pit of his stomach, it was somewhat assuaged by the way Steven bumped his elbow into Andrew’s shoulder when he pulled the car to a stop in Isabelle Dunway’s yard, beside the fountain with gently hissing water that glittered in the streetlights over the fence.

The sound of their car doors slamming shut behind them were dissonant in the calm and secretive hush of a Hollywood night.

They had almost made it to the white front door when a sound behind them made Andrew turn, and he saw the twin beams of a car’s headlights fall across the fountain and their own car. Andrew grabbed Steven’s arm, and hoped to God that the look he gave him conveyed how urgently he needed him to stay put.

Andrew didn’t know from which side door or servant’s entrance Miss Isabelle Dunway had emerged, but she already had her hand on the door of the car when Andrew intercepted her.

“Miss Dunway,” he said. “Good evening.”

She eyed her chauffeur, who dutifully sat behind the wheel and said nothing, and rested her hand on top of the car door.

“Evening, detective,” she said carefully, and he noticed her other hand was delicately placed on the fur stole she had wrapped around her shoulders.

“I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” Andrew said, eyeing the hand. “You did say I could drop in anytime.”

“I was actually on my way out,” Dunway said, and she looked at Andrew from under her lashes. It wasn’t seductive as much as it was appraising, Andrew thought.

“It’s warm out tonight, I think,” Andrew said and, in a measured move, put this hands in his pockets. He kept his eyes on her hand and saw her fingers tighten on the stole.

“The night grows cold quickly, I find,” Dunway said. Andrew saw his diplomatic options fading fast, so he leaned in and put his arm on the roof of the car, trying to lend an air of leisure to the tilt of his body even while he effectively caged her in between himself and the car.

Forward of him, perhaps, but then again, she had spilled a glass of sparkling wine on him. Forgive a fellow for thinking it might have meant something.

“You wouldn’t bank on a gentleman lending you his jacket?” he said, aiming for charm, but the register of his voice was all wrong, too deadpan to be flirtatious.

“Just what are you trying to pull,” Dunway said, and if the night wasn’t cold yet, her voice certainly was.

“Only this,” Andrew said and quickly lifted his hand to pinch the very edge of the fur stole, unbelievably soft between his two fingers, and pulled it down just enough to expose her right shoulder.

And there, down her pale arm, were three scratches - mostly scabbed over, but still an angry red - that looked like they could very well have been the work of a man pushed into a pool and trying to hold on to someone.

Andrew looked up into her eyes, and their flinty blue betrayed nothing.

Of course, she ground the heel of her shoe into Andrew’s toe, pulled her knee up into his gut, and then shoved him away by giving his left cheek a ringing slap, so Andrew might not have been at his most observant.

From what Andrew could see where he lay in dazed agony on the gravel, Miss Dunway hiked up her dress further and threw herself inside the car. He heard the car door slam shut, and then the tires squealing as the car tore away, but he had closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on drawing breath back into his lungs.

He heard the sound of running footsteps approach, and then he felt a hand on his cheek, the one that didn’t sting to all hell, and opened one eye to Steven kneeling by his side.

“Why would you want me to stay back when clearly you can’t handle anything alone?” Steven said archly, but belied his tone by gently sweeping over Andrew’s cheek with his thumb.

“This is as good an admission of guilt as any,” Andrew choked out, one hand migrating from his stomach to clutch at his throbbing foot. Steven sighed and sat back on his haunches a little.

“Well, all right,” he said. “Now we just need to catch her.”

“It’s fine,” Andrew said and finally manage to draw in a huge gulp of air. “I think I know where she went.”

* * *

**Part XII**

* * *

“Maybe we ought to get back to the station,” Steven said, eyeing Andrew who gingerly sat down in the passenger seat of the Model T. “You know, get some back-up, have you looked at.”

“You’re a medical examiner,” Andrew pointed out and rubbed at his stomach. Steven huffed.

“I’m a pathologist! I can diagnose a dead body, not a living one. And anyway, are you sure you can drop the hook on her, with the way she just laid you out?”

“She surprised me. Cut me some slack,” Andrew muttered, and then clapped his palm against the dashboard. “Come on Steven, she and Beaufort were each other’s alibis. Would have taken the both of them to overpower him, too. Let’s go!”

Steven sighed, but still pedaled the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

“Can we come up with a plan this time though,” Steven said, and Andrew couldn’t say he much appreciated Steven’s berating tone of voice. “I mean there’s two of them and two of us, and if we’re right, these ladies are prepared and able to kill a man.”

* * *

Any and all laid plans turned out to be superfluous, in the end. When they rolled back on the scene of the murder, neither Dunway nor the wife of the victim were anywhere to be found.

“Miss Dunway?” the housemaid told them when she found them breaking into the house by the way of the terrace and let them in with a put-upon sigh. “Why yes, she stopped by to pick up Mrs Beaufort. They’ve been planning the trip to France for months, long before the horrible accident. It’s Mrs Beaufort’s home country, you know. It’ll do her good.”

“There’s an open investigation into her husband’s _ murder, _ ” Andrew forced out through gritted teeth. The housemaid raised her eyebrows and seemed to consider his words for a moment before she said:

“Well, that’s dreadful, but I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. He if anyone had it coming.”

Andrew shook his head, and left Steven to talk to her while he used the house telephone to tell the station to arrange a warrant for Mrs Beaufort and Ms Dunway, and no, he didn’t know by which means they meant to travel to France, just keep an eye out, all right, and _ yes, he knew the chief was going to give him what for. _

He finally set down the telephone with a sigh of impotent frustration, and ambled over to where Steven was nodding at the housemaid’s animated talk.

“- and I’m not saying I condone murder, obviously, but I have to say-”

She broke off when Andrew approached, and sniffed haughtily.

“Well, you know my take on it, Steven,” she said imperiously. “It wasn’t right.”

She sniffed again and eyed Andrew suspiciously.

“If that was all you needed? I do need to tidy up the place, I was left specific instructions to put sheets on the furniture so it won’t get bleached by the sun while they’re away.”

Andrew waved his hand tiredly, and the housemaid bustled off with an air of assumed importance that Andrew, quite frankly, found a little bit misplaced. If Beaufort ever set foot in the Americas again, she would certainly never return here.

“There a reason she thinks the death of her employer was a good thing that doesn’t involve me slapping some iron on her, _ Steven?” _ he said, quirking his eyebrow at the familiarity that had sprung up between the two of them in his brief absence. Steven shrugged, a little uncertainly.

“She did- she did tell me some things,” he said, and he seemed shaken enough that Andrew touched his arm and gently led him out on the terrace, to the fresh night air.

Steven breathed in deeply and leaned his lower arms on the marble balustrade, looking out over the pool that had been emptied of the water that had been Fulbright-Lloyd’s demise.

“He did have a thing with everyone in a skirt that worked on his movies, like Miss Dunway said,” he begun. Andrew leaned one elbow on the marble beside him, angled his body entirely towards him to listen.

“But it wasn’t-” Steven broke off on an exhale before he picked up again. “Turns out it was like a prerequisite to get a part.”

Andrew didn’t say anything. There was nothing _ to  _ say, so he inched a little closer, put his other elbow on the balustrade so their arms were touching.

“And yeah, maybe Beaufort had been in love with him once, but from what Anne told me, there was not a lot of it lost between them anymore, and I suppose Miss Dunway confiding in her what had been happening was what, uh, pushed her over the edge.”

Steven let out another breath, an elongated huff of air that deflated his shoulders.

“They got _ married. _ They must have thought they loved each other,” he mumbled. “And still it just- she killed him, Andrew, and he did such terrible things. It can’t have been love.”

Andrew was quiet for a bit, carefully parsing through his own thoughts. Not too long ago, he would have told Steven that he was right, because love didn’t exist. It was just people wanting things, selfishly and greedily.

“I think,” he said at last, eyes fixed on the empty pool. “That sometimes you feel things so much that you do stupid things. If she hadn’t cared for him, she wouldn’t have- it must have been such a betrayal to her.”

Steven straightened up, and Andrew could hear him start to say something, so he turned and quickly added:

“Killing someone is wrong and extreme and twisted, Steven. But it’s not the absence of emotion.”

Steven’s eyes were wide and there was an insecure tilt to his mouth that had Andrew wanting to kiss it away. He settled for putting his hand back on his arm.

“I don’t know how to handle feelings this big,” Steven said, and the naked emotion on his face had something twist in Andrew’s stomach.

“Steven,” he said, and felt oddly torn between smiling and fighting back tears. “There is nothing- you couldn’t do something wrong if you tried.”

Steven let out a humorless laugh and looked away, hunching back over the balustrade like the air had gone out of him.

“You seem awfully sure of that,” he said, quietly.

“It’s because I am,” Andrew said. And it was the truth, was the thing. He had never been more sure of anything in his life. He tugged at Steven until he looked at him, and then Andrew lifted his hand to press a kiss to his knuckles, like he’d done before.

But this time there was a solemn promise in the gesture, and Steven seemed to pick up on it, because he gave a little smile, and curled his fingers around Andrew’s hand. Andrew smiled back, because he couldn’t not.

“You know,” Steven said thoughtfully, when they both leaned back over the balustrade to look out into the night. “I wonder how much quicker we would have solved this case if someone had just thought to talk to Anne from the start.”

“You two seemed to get along like a house on fire,” Andrew said. “What do you think, are you going to marry her?”

Steven let out an indignant squeak and elbowed Andrew in the side hard and in retaliation Andrew reached up and ruffled Steven’s hair.

Their laughter, echoing out over the empty pool and the manicured lawn, was perhaps an off note in these particular circumstances, but in a way, Andrew thought, it was just what they needed.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven asks Andrew for something.

“Well, they called from France to confirm that they’ve received our extradition claim,” Bianchi was telling Andrew, just as Steven came up the stairs from the morgue. He saw Andrew frown from several feet away, but Steven never let that detain him. He came up on them quietly, watching Andrew rubbing his forehead with his eyes clenched shut.

“-so, uh,” Bianchi trailed off uncertainly, glancing at Steven who gently shrugged his shoulders.

“Just,” Andrew sighed without looking up. “Tell me if there’s any developments.”

Bianchi scurried away gratefully, with one, frightened look over his shoulder at Steven, who shook his head. Honestly, sometimes people treated Andrew like he was prone to lashing out, like he wasn’t just protecting that big bleeding heart of his with a thin veneer of prickliness.

“Hey,” Steven said softly and perched on Andrew’s desk, as had become his habit. Andrew had tended to fuss about it, in the beginning, but no one in the office ever raised an eyebrow. No one even thought to suspect.

“Hi,” Andrew echoed, without looking at him. He was restlessly rubbing at his closed eyes, leaning his face against his hands, elbows planted on top of several spread out folders on his desk. Steven cast a quick glance around the office and saw that everyone in the office was engrossed in their own work, so he felt confident enough to reach over and tug at Andrew’s rolled-up sleeve.

An eye peeked out from between Andrew’s fingers, and Steven smiled.

“There you are,” he said and trailed his knuckle along the edge of the sleeve, pressed against warm skin. Andrew gave a grunt and closed his eye again.

“Tell me about it,” Steven said, eyes falling down to the point of contact between them, his hand against his arm. He heard Andrew sigh.

“International law,” he said and leaned his chin in his palms. “It’s not that I want to keep you out of it, but it’s really fucking boring and I don’t know that I can stand to summarize it coherently.”

Steven slid his hand up to squeeze his shoulder.

“Why don’t you come back to mine tonight. I’ll make us something.”

“You spoil me,” Andrew said, voice muffled behind his fingers, but then he slumped forward with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, yes please.”

Steven smiled wider and brazenly ruffled Andrew’s hair before he stood up. Andrew looked up at him, disgruntled, but Steven only hooked his finger in one of his suspenders to pull him out of his chair.

* * *

No child of Mrs Lim wouldn’t know how to make bean sprouts chicken, so that’s what Steven set out to make, with Andrew firmly placed by his kitchen table. It was easy and simple, and that was how Steven wanted it tonight.

“Just let me help,” Andrew said for the eleventh time, but Steven steadfastly shook his head.

“No,” he said, and measured out the rice to rinse it. “You’re gonna sit there and drink that nice scotch that I bought solely for your benefit, and you’re gonna appreciate what I’m trying to do for you.”

There was a creak of the floorboards behind him, and Steven assumed it was Andrew shifting on his chair. He wasn’t shocked, exactly, to feel Andrew’s arm slide around his waist and his chest press up against his back, but he did start and splash some of the starchy water down the front of his shirt.

“Andrew!” he exclaimed, the strainer landing in the sink with wet thunk as he surveyed the damage.

“Sorry,” Andrew said, but Steven didn’t think it was terribly sincere on his part because he could feel his breath ghost over the back of his neck, and then felt his lips against skin just above his collar.

The hint of damp heat sent a shiver down Steven’s spine, and he didn’t think the rush of it would ever fade. He sighed deeply, which wasn’t very sincere on _ his  _ part, and turned around to be caged in by Andrew’s arms as he planted both hands on the edge of the kitchen counter.

“Hi,” Andrew said, and Steven watched the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiled. Steven loved that about Andrew, that private little smile he reserved for just the two of them, and he raised his hand to trace the lines of it with his fingers.

Andrew let him, and Steven couldn’t help feel a little tug in his stomach at his compliance. He saw that Andrew’s eyes were firmly fixed on his own mouth, and every day it was a new discovery, to realize how much Andrew wanted him. To realize how much he wanted him back.

“I don’t understand you,” Andrew whispered, and the pad of Steven’s index finger caught on his lower lip.

“What do you mean?” Steven said, and shifted his hips so Andrew’s body could rest more fully against him. Andrew’s hands came up from Steven’s waist, to clasp his shoulder blades.

“I mean,” Andrew said before he broke off to exhale and look up into Steven’s eyes. Andrew’s eyes were an indeterminable hazel; in the light through Steven’s kitchen window the green veered towards gold. He blinked, and Steven wanted to kiss each of his eyelids.

“You’re too good,” Andrew said at last, which brought Steven up short. His hand on Andrew’s face stilled, and Andrew looked down again.

It was a strange thing for Steven to hear - Steven, who had battled with his own feelings of inadequacy for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t good enough for his wife-to-be to marry, which he understood, really. He had a hard enough time providing for his family on his salary, and who’d want to marry a pathologist anyway. But he wasn’t even good enough to fall in love, hadn’t ever felt that soul-encompassing _ want  _ \- that was, until Andrew.

Andrew, who was loyal to a fault and always dismissed any thanks like it was an inconvenience, continued:

“You ought to- you deserve to find a beautiful girl and settle down and cook this food for her and not someone like-”

Steven quickly raised his other hand and cradled Andrew’s face between his palms to interrupt. “I just feel so lucky to be with you.”

Andrew broke off on a pained noise low in his throat, and Steven leaned in to press his lips to his, to kiss the sound away.

Andrew’s mouth opened easily under his, tasting superficially of scotch, and it was difficult for Steven to not take advantage, to not just push further and have Andrew go along with it, to get to the taste beneath.

But that wasn’t what Steven was after, much as his instincts tried to convince him otherwise. Instead he broke off the kiss and pressed his forehead against Andrew’s and breathed in through his nose.

“Tell me,” Steven said. “Tell me what you want.”

Andrew blinked, and they were so close their eyelashes almost tangled.

“What?” he said, and his hands moved, came back to Steven’s waist. Steven huffed a kiss to his nose and repeated:

“What do you want?”

“You,” Andrew said, like it was self-evident. Steven wanted to push him away then, tell him to be serious. But the problem was, Andrew _ was  _ serious, and Steven felt like he would crawl out of his own skin with it.

“No,” he said stubbornly and hooked his fingers in the opening of Andrew’s shirt collar. “I mean, more specifically.”

“Oh, you mean _ more specifically,” _ Andrew said and that smile spread out over his face again, starting with the way the corners of his eyes crinkled. Steven would have told him off for teasing if he didn’t start walking backwards just then, pulling Steven with him, and if he hadn’t loved the low rumble of Andrew's voice, how he could infuse his monotone with such meaning as to make Steven tremble with want.

Getting rid of clothes, article by article, was a thrill Steven was sure he would never tire of. It was another sort of thrill entirely, to have Andrew so at home in Steven’s apartment, to know his way around and pull Steven down on the bed with him. It made Steven want to take him apart, fall apart himself.

Frustratingly, Andrew seemed in no hurry at all. He took his sweet time in kissing every spot of Steven’s skin that he exposed, while stretching underneath him like a cat in the sun.

In the end, Steven decided he would take an eye for an eye, and as soon as Andrew was naked beneath him, he grasped Andrew’s hands and pinned them to the bed above his head.

He couldn’t help but trail his eyes down the lines of Andrew’s right arm, tracking the way a shiver rippled over the taut skin. His attention caught on the inch-long scar on the inside of Andrew’s biceps, an angry red line against the soft, pale skin. Andrew had had never in so many words told Steven about it, but Steven recognized a healed knife wound when he saw one.

Andrew had never greeted any of Steven’s impulses with anything less than implicit encouragement, so Steven didn’t even hesitate in ducking his head down and pressing a kiss to the fading mark. Then he followed the groove of the muscle down into the pit of Andrew’s arm, pressed his nose into the tuft of dark hair and inhaled deeply, like his heady scent was a drug that he couldn’t get enough of.

Andrew arched beneath him, pressed the full length of his body against Steven’s and clenched his fists. He didn’t attempt to break free of Steven’s grip though, almost like he was forcing himself to stay pliant.

“Please tell me what you want,” Steven said yet again, mumbling the words into the skin of Andrew’s heaving chest.

“You,” Andrew repeated, but he said it impatiently, like Steven was being deliberately obtuse. He bucked his hips up, and and Steven had to hide his face against his shoulder.

“Be serious,” Steven whispered, and Andrew squirmed against him, straining his neck so he could press their mouths together.

“I am serious,” Andrew said in between kisses. “Please, Steven, I want you. Inside me.”

His words incited a shudder that wracked Steven’s entire body, both hot and cold at the same time. He straightened out his arms, hitching himself up and scooting a little backwards to stare down at him.

Andrew looked flushed, the healthy red of his cheeks having spread down his neck to his chest. His lips were parted and his eyes hooded, and although Steven had let go of his wrists he still kept his hands above his head, splayed out and relaxed even as his body heaved with each breath.

Steven wasn’t an idiot. He was a medical examiner with the Los Angeles police department in the year of the Lord 1937, he wasn’t _ clueless.  _ He knew what people got up to, he even knew the mechanics of it, but he hadn’t ever thought someone would want it like this, much less that- that he himself would want it so much, as soon as Andrew said it.

“Please,” Andrew repeated, and his voice sounded wrecked, gravelly and low. It tugged low in Steven’s spine and he had to grind down, into the heat and friction of his body, just to stay sane.

“Yeah,” Steven said, and now he was breathless too. Andrew lifted his hand then, sifted his fingers through Steven’s hair in a gesture he thought was meant to be soothing but instead made Steven’s skin buzz with need.

He bent down, pressed his face into the softness of Andrew’s stomach and mumbled:

“Andrew, just tell me- tell me how.”

And Andrew did. They used a bottle of mineral oil, and Andrew spread his legs open and talked him through every step, his voice a steady, reassuring drone except for when his breath hitched and he had to bite his lip for a second.

Every time Steven would still, apologies crowding on his tongue, and every time Andrew would cant his hips and tell him to keep going with his fingers. It was a strange sensation, Steven thought, or it would have been if he hadn’t been so thoroughly mesmerized by every tremor that went through Andrew’s body, every twitch of his thighs as the both of them fought to stay calm.

Steven couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it, even when Andrew pulled his hand away, pressing the back of his head against the bed and gasped:

“All right, all right, stop, I can’t- I want to last.”

Steven pulled back a little, suddenly realizing how heavily he was breathing, afraid of how close he was to losing all semblance of control. Andrew blinked up at him, and his forehead was shiny with sweat that matted his hair into a dark honey color.

“It’s easier if I turn around,” he said, and Steven didn’t, _ couldn’t,  _ say anything back, so he let Andrew flip over, hitch his hips up, and Steven wondered if maybe you could die from wanting too much.

He fit his palms against the curve of Andrew’s ass, almost reverently, and Andrew mumbled something that sounded a lot like a command, so Steven drew up on his knees and lined himself up, his entire body trembling with the effort.

Andrew made it easy, bracketing Steven’s knees with his own and angling his body so that Steven didn’t push in so much as he slipped forward and had to brace his hands on either side of Andrew’s chest, curling his fingers in the bedding and gritting his teeth against the wave of sensation that threatened to drown him.

“Yeah, yeah, just like that, yes, Steven,” Andrew was saying, but it barely cut through the haze of pleasure. Steven curled down, pressed his body along Andrew’s back and pressed his face in between Andrew’s shoulder blades, just to breathe for a second.

“You can move,” Andrew said, and his face was turned below his loosely crossed arms, cheek pressed flat against the bed, so that Steven could see the fan of his eyelashes, the shape of his profile. Steven stretched his neck, pressed a kiss to Andrew’s cheek, and he felt more than heard the groan that was pushed out of Andrew with the movement.

Steven froze, but Andrew didn’t. He pushed up at Steven, who gasped and scrambled wildly at Andrew until he could brace himself against his arm and start up a slow but steady rhythm, lest he actually die.

“So good,” Andrew breathed at one point. Steven actually laughed at that, making both of them gasp. He was so overwhelmed - it was so good it almost hurt, every nerve ending in his body on fire.

He didn’t want to selfishly chase his own release, but the way Andrew twisted beneath him, matching him move for move, made it difficult. When Andrew shifted beneath him to get a hand on himself, Steven’s hips stuttered, and Andrew climaxed with a drawn out moan that he muffled by biting into his own forearm.

Steven had a second to wonder what he ought to do, if keeping it up would be impolite - but then Andrew twisted again, reaching up behind himself to pull Steven back down by his hair.

Steven’s body bent like a willow over him and he felt his orgasm roll up from his stomach. His limbs locked with it, and he thought he gave a shout before he collapsed on top of Andrew, completely wrung out and panting wildly.

After a few moments, that might as well have been an entire lifetime, Steven turned his head and buried his nose in the fine hairs at the nape of Andrew’s neck.

“I love you,” he mumbled. Andrew moved beneath him, shifting just a little without dislodging Steven at all, so he went on, “I think you ought to live here with me.”

This time Andrew shifted so that Steven had to withdraw and let him turn back around. He did so with a groan, stretching out his legs and pulling Steven back in so he had his head pillowed on Andrew’s shoulder.

”You talk a lot of nonsense in the throes of passion, Steven,” he remarked mildly, voice gruff.

“Give me some credit,” Steven said, pressing the flat of his palm against Andrew’s side. “I’m hardly in the throes of passion any longer.”

He raised himself up on his elbow, to look down at Andrew. He looked solemn, eyes closed and mouth just a little open - the only thing that betrayed him was the hectic flush to his cheeks and the way his chest still heaved with his breathing.

“You never took back the clothes you left here,” Steven pointed out. “They’re all laundered and hung up in my closet. I know you don’t have any food at home because you always eat here. I want you to live here with me.”

Andrew opened his eyes, and Steven wanted to see that every morning for the rest of his life. He smoothed his hand down the plane of Andrew’s chest as Andrew regarded him.

“I thought you said you were afraid of feelings this big,” he said, and Steven blinked.

“Not anymore,” he said and pinched Andrew’s nipple. Andrew gave a loud yelp, and Steven grinned until Andrew pulled him into a headlock and wrestled him down on the bed, pinning him by slinging his thigh over his legs.

“All right, all right!” Steven laughed and tried to grapple back, but they were both slippery with sweat and they soon just settled back together, arms and legs entangled and Andrew’s nose pressed into Steven’s cheek.

“I mean it, you know,” Steven said and stared up at his ceiling. It ought to be dusted soon, he thought absently.

“What?” Andrew mumbled, and his body was so warm. He was like a walking radiator. Despite the oppressive Californian heat, Steven pulled him closer.

“I’m not afraid of feelings this big when it’s with you.”

This time it was Andrew who pulled himself up to lean on his elbow. He looked down at Steven, and Steven didn’t quite know what to make of his expression. It seemed almost sad, and suddenly there was a cold hand of fear clenching around his stomach.

“I love you too,” Andrew said, and the fear turned into a soaring sense of joy when he leaned down to kiss Steven on the mouth.

“Hey,” Steven said, and his lips moved against Andrew’s with the word. Andrew breathed in through his nose, a languorous sigh, and kissed Steven’s cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Will you let me wash up so I can finish making us dinner?”

It was hard to get up, when Andrew started laughing uproariously and clutched Steven close. Steven found that he didn’t much mind, and wound his arms around Andrew as well.

He supposed they had time, and he smiled into Andrew’s hair.

 

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting, I appreciate it so much!  
> If you want to talk about it, [my askbox on tumblr is always open](http://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com/)


End file.
